7 



THE 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



BY 



THOMAS KEIGHTLEY, 

AUTHOR OF "the HISTORY OF GREECE," &C. 



TO WHICH IS ADDED; 



A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY 



BY 

JOSHUA TOULMIN SMITH, 

AUTHOR OF " COMPARATIVE VIEW OF ANCIENT HISTOBT, AWD 
EXPLANATION OF CHRONOLOGICAL ERAS." 






Vvy4^^,,^e-^^y 



NEW-YORK: 
LEAVITT, TROW AND COMPANY 

191 BROADWAY. 

1848. 



« 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840^ 

By Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



'^'^W'\ 






PREFACE 



17 



Encouraged by the success of my History of Greece, I 
now present to the public, and particularly to those who 
are engaged in the task of education, that of Rome simi- 
larly executed. The inadequacy of Goldsmith's and other 
compilations to convey correct historical knowledge is now 
generally felt and acknowledged, and works of a higher 
order are required for education. 

Most readers are aware that in consequence of the labors 
of Niebuhr (a man of whom I never can either think or 
speak but with admiration and respect) the history of the 
early centuries of Rome has assumed an entirely new char- 
acter. These new views should be known, and I have 
therefore introduced them ; but as every one may not be 
disposed to acquiesce in them, I have, though convinced of 
their general soundness, kept them distinct from the common 
narrative, which I have given in all the fulness that my 
limits would allow ; and teachers will use their discretion 
with respect to the chapters which contain them. In the 
Second Part of this work I have followed this writer's nar- 
rative, as it would have been presumption in me to do 
otherwise. The study of Niebuhr's own work I however 
most strongly recommend to every one ; and I can answer 
with confidence for the correctness and fidelity of the trans- 
lation of it by MM. Hare and Thirlwall. 

It may startle some readers to find so much of the early 
Roman history treated -as fabulous, and Rome's first two 
kings presented as the mere creations of imagination. Their 
surprise I can assure them arises entirely from ignorance of 
mythology as a science ; for were they well acquainted with 
its principles, it would probably be of another kind, and they 
would wonder how such palpable fictions ever came to pass 
for realities. I have labored, and I hope with success, to 
raise mythology from the contempt in which it has long lain 



IV PREFACE. 

in this country, and I look forward to its enjoying the full 
share of consideration which it deserves. 

As 1 find that my other works have already made their 
way into some highly respectable ladies' schools, and know- 
ing to what ridicule, though unjustly, the wrong accentua- 
tion of classic names exposes people, I have followed the 
Greeks in circumflexing the penultimate syllables when 
long otherwise than by position or the union of consonants. 
The apex which 1 have employed is constantly used in 
marking the long vowels in Oriental words, and it is more 
agreeable to the eye than an accent, or the mark of long 
quantity. Thus Cethegus and Perperna have both the 
accent on the penultimate syllable, while in Catulus, Han- 
nibal, and others, it is on the antepenultimate. 

I take this opportunity of informing the heads of schools, 
that if life and health are spared me 1 propose writing a 
volume of Roman Antiquities as a companion to the present 
work. I shall feel most grateful to those who will point 
out to me any defects or omissions they may discover in my 
works, and 1 now return my thanks to those who liave dune 
so in my Greece, and assure them that their suggestions 
will be attended to in the next edition. I would finally 
request that my History of Greece should be always read 
before that of Rome ; for as I regard these works as one 
whole, it is frequently referred to in the following pages. 

T. K. 

London, Dec. 15th, 1835. 



In this Second edition a few corrections and improve- 
ments have been made. I am happy to be able to add that 
the First volume of mv History of Ens-land, containing the 
history from the earnest tnnes to me end of the House of 
Tudor, is in the press, and will be published before mid- 
summer. The Second and concluding volume will follow 
it with all convenient speed. 

London, April, 1837. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 
THE REGAL PERIOD. 



CHAPTER 1. PAGE* 

Description of Italy. ■ — Ancient Inhabitants of Italy. — The Pelaseians. 

— The Oscans. — The Latins. — The Umbrians. — The SabelHans. 

— The Etruscans. — The Li^urians. — The Italian Greeks. — Italian 
Religion. — Political Constitution 1 

CHAPTER II. 

JEneas emd the Trojans. — Alba. — Numitor and Amulius. — Romulus 
and Remus. — Building- of Rome. — Reign of Romulus. — Roman Con- 
stitution. — Numa Pompilius. — Tullus Hostilius. — Ancus Marcius. ... 8 

CHAPTER III. 

L. Tarquinius Priscus. — Servius Tullius. -^L. Tarquinius Superbus. — 
Tale of Lucretia. — Abolition of Royalty. — Conspiracy at Rome. — 
Death of Brutus. — War with Porsenna. — Battle of the Regillus 20 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Regal Period of Rome, according to the views of Niebuhr 37 

CHAPTER V. 

The Origin ajid Progress of the Roman Constitution according to Nie- 
buhr 46 



PART II. 
THE REPUBLIC — CONQUEST OF ITALY. 



CHAPTER I. 

Begmninp^ of the Republic. — The Dictatorship. — Roman Law of Debt. 
Distress caused by the Law of Debt. — Secession to the Sacred Mount. 



▼1 CONTENTS. 

PAGE, 

— The Tribunate. — Latin Constitution. — Treaty with the Latins. — 
War with the Volsciaus. — Treaty with the Hernicans 57 

CHAPTER 11. 

The public Leind. — Agrarian Law of Spurius Cassius. — The Consulate. — 
Volscian Wars. — Veientine War. — The Fabii at the Cremera. — Sieffc 
of Rome. — Murder of tlie Tribune Genucius. — Rogation of Volero Pud- 
lihus. — Defeat of the Roman Army. — Death of Appius Claudius 68 

CHAPTER HL 

Volscian War. — Legend of Coriolanus. — The Terentilian Law. — Sei- 
zure of the Capitol by the Exiles. — Dictatorship of Cincinnatus. — The 
first Decemvirate. — I'he second Decemvirate. — Siciiiius Dentatus. — 
Fate of Virginia. — Abolition of the Decemvirate 81 

CHAPTER IV. 

Victories of Valerius and Horatius. — Canuleikn Law. — Censorship and 
military Tribunate. — Feud at Ardea. — Sp- Meelius. — iEquian and 
Volscian War. — Capture of Fidenw. — Volscian War.^Murder of 
Postumius by his own Soldiers. — Veientine War. — Capture of Veii. — 
Siege of Falerii. — Exile of Camillus 99 

CHAPTER V. 

The Gauls. — Their Invasion of Italy. — Siege of Clusium. — Battle ofthe 
Alia. — Taking of Rome. — Rebuilding of the City. — Distress of the 
People. — M. Manlius. — The Licinian Rogations. — Pestilence at Rome 

— M. Curtius. — Hernican War. — Combat of Manlius and a Gaul. — 
Gallic and Tuscan Wars. — Combat of Valerius and a Gaul. — Reduc- 
tion of the Rate of Interest 113 



CHAPTER VL 

First Samnite War. — Mutiny in the Roman Army. — Peace with the Sam- 
nites. — Latin War. — Manlius put to Death by his Father. — Battle of 
Vesuvius, and Self-devotion of Decius. — Reduction of Latium. — Pub- 
lilian Laws. — Second Samnite War. — Severity of the Dictator Papirius. 

— Surrender at the Caudine Forks. — Capture of Sora. — Tuscan War. 

— Passage of the Ciminian Wood. — Samnite and Tuscan Wars. — 
Peace with the Samnites 131 

• 
CHAPTER VTI. 

Third*Samnite and Etruscan Wars. — Battle of Senlinum, and Self-de- 
votion of Decius. — Battle of Aquilonia. — Reduction of the Samnites. 
•—■ Hortensian Law. — Worship of ^Esculapius introduced. — Lucanian 
War. — Roman Embassy insulted at Tarentum. — Gallic and Etruscan 
War 151 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Arrival of Pyrrhus in Italy. — Battle on the Siris. — Cineas at Rome. — 
Approach of Pyrrhus to Rome. — Battle of Asculum. — Pyrrhus /n Sici- 



CONTENTS. Vll 

PAGE. 

ly. — Battle of Beneventum. — Departure of Pyrrhus. — Italian Allies. 
— Censorship of Ap. Claudius. — Change in the Constitution. — The 
Roman Legion. — Roman Literature 161 



PART III. 



THE REPUBLIC — CONQUEST OF CARTHAGE AND 

MACEDONIA. 



CHAPTER L 

Carthage. — First Punic War. — Siege of Agrigentum. , — Roman Fleet. — 
NavHJ Victory of Duilius. — Invasion of Afrif a. — Defeat and Capture of 
Regulus. — Losses of the Romans at Sea. — Battle at Panormus. — Death 
of Regulus. — Defeat of Claudius. — Victory at the .^gatian Isles. — 
Peace with Carthage. — Effects of the TjV^ar 174 



CHAPTER IL 
Civil War at Carthage. — Illyrian War. — Gallic Wars 190 

CHAPTER III. 

Conquests of the Carthaginians in Spain. — Taking of Saguntum. — 
March of Hannibal for Italy. — Hannibal's Passage of the Alps. — Bat- 
tle of the Ticinus. — Battle of the Trebia. — Battle of the Trasimene 
Lake. — Hannibal and Fabius Cunctator. — Battle of Cannse.— Prog- 
ress of Hannibal 194 

CHAPTER IV. 

Hannibal in Campania. — Defeat of Postumius. — Affairs of Spain. — 
Treaty between Hannibal and King Philip. — Hannibal repulsed at 
Nola. — Success of Hanno m Bruttium. — Affairs of Sardinia, — of 
Spain, — of Sicily. — Elections at Rome. -— Defeat of Hanno. — Siege 
of Syracuse. — Affairs of Spain and Africa. — Taking of Tarentum. — 
Successes of Hannibal 212 

CHAPTER V. 

Taking of Syracuse. — Defeat and Death of the Scipios. -— Hannibal's 
March to Rome. — Surrender of Capua. — Scipio in Spain. — Taking 
of New Carthage. — Affairs in Italy. — Retaking of Tarentum.— 
Defeat of Hasdrubal in Spain. — Death of Marcellus. — March of Has- 
drubal. — His Defeat on the Metaurus • 225 



Vlll ^ CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VL 

PAGB. 

Successes of Scipio in Spain. — Mutiny in his Araiy. — Carthaginians ex- 
pelled from Spain. — Scipio's Return to Rome. — His Preparations for 
invading Africa. — Invasion of Africa. — Horrible Destruction of a Punic 
Army. — Defeat of the Carthaginians. — Attack on the Roman Fleet. — 
Death of Sophonisba. — Return of Hannibal. — Interview^ of Hannibal 
and Scipio. — Battle of Zama. — End of the War 237 



CHAPTER VII. 

Macedonian War. — Flight of Hannibal from Carthage. — Antiochus in 
Greece. — Invasion of Asia and Defeat of Antiochus. — Death of Han- 
ni.bal. — Last Days of Scipio. — Characters of Hannibal and Scipio. — 
War with Perseus of Macedonia. — Conquest of Macedonia. —Triumph 
of Emilias Paulus 253 



CHAPTER VIII. 

AflTairs of Carthage. — Third Punic War. — Description of Carthage. — 
111 Success of the Romans. — Scipio made Consul. — He saves Man- 
cinus. — Restores Discipline in the Army. — Attack on Carthage. — At- 
tempt to close the Harbor. — Capture and Destruction of Carthage. — 
Reduction of Macedonia and Greece to Provinces 264 



CHAPTER IX. 

Affairs of Spain. — War with the Lusitanians. — Treacher}^ of LucuTms. — 
Viriathian War. — Murder of Viriathus. — Numantlne War. — Capture 
of Numantia. — Servile War in Sicily. — Foreign Relations of Rome. — 
Government of the Provinces. — The Publicans. — Roman Superstition. 
Roman Literature 275 



PART IV. 



THE REPUBLIC — CONQUEST OF THE EAST, AND 
DOWNFALL OF THE CONSTITUTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

State of Things at Rome. — Tiberius Gracchus : — his Tribunate and Laws : 

— his Death. — Death of Scipio Africanus. — Cains Gracchus: — his 
Tribunates and Laws : — his Death. — The Gracchi and their Measures. 

— Insolence and Cruelty of the Oligarchs. — Conquests in Asia and Gaul 290 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IL 

PAGE. 

The Jugurthine War. — Defeat and Death of Adherbal. — Bestia In Africa. 
— Jug-urtha at Rome.— • Delieat of Aulus. — JVIelellus in Africa. — At- 
tack oil Zama. — Negotiations with Jugiiriha. — Taking of 'I'heila.— 
Caius Marius. — Taking of Capsa. — Taking of the Castle on the Alulu- 
cha. — Sulla and Boccnus. — Delivery up of Jugurtha. — Mis Knd. — 
Cimbric War. — Victory at Aquse iScxtiae. — Victory at Vercellae. — 
Insurrection of the Slaves in Sicily 309 



CHAPTER m. 

State of Rome. — Tribunate of Saturninus. — His Sedition and Death. — 
Return of Metellus. — Tribunate and Death of Drusus. — Social or Marsic 
War. — Murder of the Praetor by the Usurers. — Sedition of Marius and 
Sulpicius. — Sulla at Rome. — Fliglit of Marius 324 



CHAPTER IV. 

State of Asia. — First Mithridatic War. — Sulla in Greece. — Victories of 
Chseronea and Orchomenus. — Peace with Mithridates. — Flaccus and 
Fimbria. — Sedition of Cinna. — Return of Marius. — Cruelties of Marius 
and Cinna. — Deaih and Character of Marius. — Return of Sulla. — His 
Victories. — Proscriptions of Sulla. — His Dictatorship and Laws. — He 
lays down his Office, and retires. — His Death and Funeral. — His 
Character 337 



CHAPTER V. 

Sedition of Lepidus. — Sertorian War in Spain. — Death of Sertorius and 
end of the War. — Spartacian or Gladiatorial War. —s Defeat and 
Death of Spartacus. — Consulate of Pompeius and Crassus. — Piratic 
War. — Reduction of Crete 353 



CHAPTER VL 

Second Mithridatic War. — Third Mithridatic War. — Victories of Lucul- 
lus. — His Justice to the Provincials. — War with Tigranes. — Defeat of 
Tigranes. — Taking of Tigranocerta. — Invasion of Annenia. — Defeat 
of a Roman Army. — Intrigues of Lucullus' Enemies at Rome. — Man- 
ilian Law. — Pompeius in Asia. — Defeat of Mithridates. — Pompeius in 
Armenia : — in Albania and Iberia: — in Syria and the Holy Land. — 
Death of Mithridates. — Return and Triumph of Pompeius 362 



CHAPTER VIL 

Catilina's Conspiracy. — Arrest and Execution of the Conspirators. — Defeat 
and Death of Catilina. — Honors given to Cicero. — Factious Attempts at 
Rome. — Clodius violates the Mysteries of the Bona Dea. — His Trial.. 375 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Pompeius and Lucullus. — C. Julius Caesar. — M. Licinius Crassus. —M. 
Porcius Cato. — M. TuUius Cicero. — Pompeius at Rome. — Consiilate 

h 



: CONTENTS. 

FAGB<. 

of Caesar. — Exile of Cicero. — Robbery of the King of Cyprus. — Recall 

of Cicero. — His Conduct afler his Return • • • 384 



CHAPTER IX. 

Second Consulate of Pompeius and Crassus. — Parthian War of Crassus. 
— His Defeat and Death. — Anarchy at Rome. — Death of CJodius. — 
Pompeius sole Consul. — Trial and Exile of Milo. — Gallic Wars of 
Csesar 399 



CHAPTER X. 

Commencement of the Civil War. — Csesar at Rome. — Csesar's War in 
Spain. — Surrender of Massilia. — Ceesar's civil Regulations. — Military 
Events in Epirus .-... 415 



CHAPTER XI. 

Battle of Pharsalia. — Flight and Death of Pompeius. — His Character. — 
Csesar's Alexandrian War. — The Pontic War. ^- Affairs of Rome. — 
Mutiny of Csesar's Legions. — African War. — Death of Cato. — His 
Character. — Csesar's Triumphs. — Reformation of the Calendar. — Sec- 
ond Spanish War. — Battle of Munda. — Honors bestowed on Csesar. — 
Conspiracy against him. — His Death. — His Character 428 



CHAPTER XII. 

Affairs at Rome after Csesar's Death. — His Funeral. — Conduct of Anto- 
nius. — Octavius at Rome. — Quarrel between him and Antonius. — Mu- 
tmensian War. • — Caesar made Consul. — The Triumvirate and Proscrip- 
tion. — Death of Cicero. — His Character. — Acts of the Triumvirs. — 
War with Brutus and Cassius. — Battle of Philippi. — Death of Brutus 
and Cassius. — Antonius and Cleopatra. — Csesar's Distribution of Lands. 

— Perusian War. — Return of Antonius to Italy. — War with Sex. 
Pompeius. — Parthian War. — Rupture between Csesar and Antonius. 

— Battle of Actium. — Last Efforts of Antonius. — Death of Antonius 
and Cleopatra. — Sole Dominion of Csesar. — Conclusion 446 



Chronological Table of Contemporary History 478 



PRELIMINARY NOTICES. 



Roman Chronology. 

The taking of the City by the Gauls is the event which was used 
to connect the Grecian and Roman chronology, from which 360 years 
were reckoned back to the foundation of Rome. By some that event 
was placed in 01. 98, 1, B. C. 388 ; by others in Ol. 98, 2, B. C. 387. 
Fabius, taking the former without a necessary correction of four years, 
placed the building of Rome in Ol. 8, 1, B. C. 747 ; Cato, from the 
same date with the correction, in Ol. 7, 1, B. C. 751 ; Polybius and 
Nepos, taking the latter date with the correction, in 01. 7, 2, B. C. 
750; while Varro placed it in Ol. 6, 3, B.C. 753. The eras in use 
are the Catonian, Varronian, and that of the Capitoline Marbles, (as 
they are called,) which is a mean between those two; the date of the 
commencement of our era being 752 Cat., 753 Cap. Mar., 754 Varr. 
The Catonian is that used in the following pages, and the year B. C. 
may always be obtained by subducting any given date from 752. 

Roman Money. 

The lowest Roman coin, the As, was originally a pound weight of 
brass, (<E5,) but it was gradually reduced to half «,n ounce. The Ses- 
terce {sestertius, i. e. semis-tertius) contained 2^ asses, and was usually 
expressed by HS. (an abbreviation of L. L. S. Libra, libra, semis, or of 
l.l.j^.) The Denar (denarius) contained 10 {deni) asses. 

-As the Greek talent was equal to 24,000 sesterces, four sesterces 
(that is, ten asses or one denar) were equal to one drachma. 

The As is usually said to be equal to ^-^^q., and the sesterce to \d. 
2t%q. of our money ; but if the Greek drachma be worth 9|<Z., (see 
Hist, of Greece,) the sesterce is equal to 2^^d.; the As is therefore 
nearly equivalent to an English penny, and the denar to a French 
franc. 

Roman Measures of Length and Breadth. 

The Roman Foot was equal to 11.604 English inches. Five feet 
made the Pace (passus) = 4: feet 10.02 inches; 1000 paces (mille 
passns) are called the Roman Mile, a word derived from mille. 



Xll PRELIMINARY NOTICES. 

The Roman Jlctus was a square of 120 feet, containing therefore 
14,400 square feet ; two Actus made the Juger, (from jugum,) whtch 
consequently measured 240 feet by 120. 

Roman JVames. 

The Romans had two, three, four, or more names : 1, The nomen, 
or Gentile name, (that of their gens,) as Julius, Furius ; no Roman 
was without this name ; it always ended in ius. 2, The prcenomen, 
or Christian name, as we may term it, as Aulus, Caius, ending (the 
antiquated Kseso, Lar, Opiter, Agrippa, and Volero excepted) in its. 
3, The cognomen, or family name, as Scipio^ Sulla, Marcellus. 4, 
The agnomen, or name of honor, as Afric^nus. Ex. gr. Publius Cor- 
nelius Scipio Afric^nus. 

The abbreviations of the prsenomina are as follow : 

A. Aulus ; Ap. or App. Appius ; C. Caius ; Cn. Cnaeus ; D. De- 
cimus ; K. Kaeso or Caeso ; L. Lucius ; Mam. Maraercus ; M. Mar- 
cus; M'. Manius; N. Numerius; P. Publius; Q. Quintus ; S. or 
Sex. Sextus ; Ser. Servius ; Sp. Spurius ; T. Titus ; Ti. or Tib. 
Tiberius. 

These praenomina (Appius and Cseso excepted) were common to 
most families ; the more unusual ones were peculiar to some families : 
thus none but the Menenii and Furii bore that of Agrippa, none 
but the Fabii, Quinctii, Atinii and Duilii that of Caeso ; the Cominii 
and vEbutii alone bore that of Postumius; Volero was peculiar to 
the Publilii, Opiter to the Virginii, Lar to the Herminii, Vopiscus to 
the Julii, and Appius to the patrician Claudii. 

Women had not a prasnomen; the daughters of a Fabius, for 
example, were called Fabia prima, secunda, etc. 

The Romans when adopted placed their own gentile or family 
name last : thus, ^milius, when adopted by Scipio, was named P. 
Cornelius Scipio ^mili&nus ; and M. Junius Brutus, when adopted 
by Ceepio, became Q. Servilius Csepio Brutus. 



THE 



HISTORY OF ROME 



PART I. 

THE REGAL PERIOD. 



CHAPTER I. 

DESCRIPTION OF ITALY. ANCIENT INHABITANTS OP ITALY. 

THE PELASGIANS. THE OSCANS. THE LATINS. THE 

UMBRIANS. THE SABELLIANS. THE ETRUSCANS. THE 

LIGURIANS. THE ITALIAN GREEKS. ITALIAN RELIGION. 

POLITICAL CONSTITUTION. 

The peninsula named Italy, the seat of the mighty re- 
public whose origin and history we have undertaken to 
relate, is separated from the great European continent by 
the mountain range of the Alps, and extends about five 
hundred miles in a south-eastern direction into the Medi- 
terranean Sea. The part of this sea between Italy and the 
Hellenic peninsula was named the Adriatic or Upper Sea, 
(Blare Superum ;) that on the west toward the Iberian 
peninsula, the Tyrrhenian or Lower Sea, {Mare Inferum.) 
A mountain range, the Apennines, commences at the Alps 
on the north-western extremity of Italy, and runs along it 
nearly to its termination, sending out branches on either 
side to the sea, between which lie valleys and plains gene- 
rally of extreme fertility. The great plain in the north, 
extending in an unbroken level from the Alps to the Apen- 
nines and the sea,* and watered by the Po (Padus) and 

* Now called the Plain of the Po, (La Pianura del Po.) 
1 A 



2 HISTORY OF ROME. 

other streams, is the richest in Europe; and that of Campa^ 
nia, on the west coast, yields to it in extent rather than in 
fertility. The rivers which descend to water these plains and 
valleys are numerous ; and many of them, such as the Po, the 
Adige, [Atesis,) the Arno, and the Tiber, are navigable. 

The mountains of Italy are composed internally of gran- 
ite, which is covered with formations of primary and sec- 
ondary limestone, abounding in minerals, and in ancient 
times remarkably prolific of copper. The white marble of 
Carrara, on the west coast, is not to be rivalled. Forests of 
timber-trees clothe the sides of the Apennines and their 
kindred ranges, among whose lower parts lie scattered lakes 
of various sizes, many of them evidently the craters of ex- 
tinct volcanoes. The western side of Italy has been at all 
times a volcanic region, and Mount Vesuvius, on the Bay 
of Naples, is in action at the present day. 

The fruitful Isle of Sicily, with its volcanic mountain 
iEtna, lies at the southern extremity of Italy, separated 
from it by a channel five miles in its greatest, two in its 
least, breadth. It is by no means unlikely that, as tradition 
told, Italy and Sicily were once continuous, but that, ai 
a point of time long anterior to history, a convulsion of 
nature sank the solid land, and let the sea run in its place. 
Besides Sicily, there are various smaller islands attached to 
Italy, chiefly along its west coast, of which the most re- 
markable are the volcanic group of the Liparean isles and 
the Isle of Elba, (Hva,) which has at all times been produc- 
tive of iron. 

The magnificent region which we have just described, so 
rich in all the gifts of nature, has never, so far as tradition 
and analogies enable us to trace, been abandoned by Prov- 
idence to the dominion of rude barbarians living by the 
chace and the casual spontaneous productions of the soil, 
without manners, laws, or social institutions. To ascertain, 
however, its exact condition in the times anterior to history 
is beyond our power ; but by means of the traditions of the 
Greeks, and the existing monuments of the languages and 
works of its ancient inhabitants, we are enabled to obtain a 
view of its ante-Roman state, superior perhaps in definite- 
ness to what we can form of the ante-Hellenic condition of 
Greece. 

Under the guidance of the sharp-sighted and sagacious 
investigator whose researches have given such an aspect of 



ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF ITALY. Ji 

clearness and certainty to the early annals of Rome,* we will 
now venture to pass in review the ancient peoples of Italy. 

In the most remote ages to which we can reach by con- 
jecture, Italy was the abode of two distinct portions of the 
human family, different in language and in manners ; the 
one dwelling on the coasts and plains, the other possessing 
the mountains of the interior. The former were probably 
a portion of that extensive race which we denominate the 
Pelasgian, and wRich dwelt also in Greece and Asia ; t the 
latter were of unknown origin, and no inquiry will enable 
us to ascertain any thing more respecting them, than that 
they belonged to the Caucasian race of mankind. We 
cannot, by means of language or any other tokens, trace 
their affinity to any known branch of the human kind, or 
even make a conjecture as to the time and mode of their 
entrance into Italy. They may therefore, under proper re- 
strictions, be termed its indigenous inhabitants. 

The Pelasgians, it is probable, entered Italy on the north- 
east. Under the names of Liburnians and Venetians, they 
possessed probably the whole plain of the Po and the east 
coast down to Mount Garganus ; thence, as Daunians, Peu- 
cetians, and Messapians, they dwelt to the Bay of Tarentum 
and inlands ; as Chones, Morgetes, and CEnotrians, they then 
held the country from sea to sea to the extreme end of the 
peninsula; and finally, as Tyrrhenians and Siculans, dwelt 
along the west coast to the Tiber and up its valley, perhaps 
even to the Umbro (Ombrone) in Tuscany. Italians was 
the name of the people, Italia that of the country, south of 
the Tiber and of Mount Garganus. | 

The Pelasgians of Italy seem to have been similar in char- 
acter to those of Greece. We find various traces of their 
devotion to the pursuits of agriculture ; their religion ap- 
pears to have been of a rural character ; and Cyclopian walls 
are to be seen ' in some of the districts where they dwelt. 
If they entered the country as conquerors, it was probably 
their superior civilization which gave them the advantage 
over the ruder tribes which occupied it. 

At length, in consequence of pressure from without, or 
from internal causes, such as excess of population, the 

* G. B, Niebuhr, with whom K. O. Muller, in his Etruscans, (Die 
Etrusker,) in general agrees. 

t See History of Greece, Part I. chap. ii. 

+ Those skilled in etymology will easily see that Italus and Siculus 
are but different forms of the same word. 



4 HISTORY OF ROME. 

tribes of the interior came down on and conquered the peo- 
ple of the coasts and plains A people named Opicans, or 
Oscans, overcame the Daunians and other peoples of the 
east coast, and the region thus won was named from them 
Apulia; they also made themselves masters of the country 
thence across to the west coast, and along it up toward the 
Tiber, Here they were divided into the Saticulans, Si- 
dicinians, Volscians, and ^Equians, while Auruncans, or 
Ausonians, was the more general appellation of the whole 
people.* 

Another tribe, named Cascans and Priscans,t who are 
supposed to have dwelt in the mountains from the Fucine 
Lake to Reate and Carseoli, being pressed from behind by 
the Sabines, came down along the Anio and subdued the 
Siculans, named Latins, who occupied the country there- 
abouts. A part of this people retired southwards ; and 
this movement gave, it is said, occasion to the occupation 
of the Island of Sicily by the Siculans ; the remainder coa- 
lesced with the conquerors, and the united people was named 
Priscans and Latins, [JPrisci Latini,X ) or simply Latins, and 
their country Latium. 

Further north, a people named the Umbrians descended 
from the mountains and conquered the country to the Po ; 
they also extended themselves to the sea on the west of the 
Apennines, and down along the valley of the Tiber. 

The Latin language, which we have still remaining, is 
evidently composed of two distinct elements, one akin to 
the Greek, and which we may therefore assume to be Pe- 
lasgian, the other of a totally different character. § The 

* According to etymology, the root being op or Av,Opici,Osci, Jlpuli, 
Volsci, JEqui, are all kindred terms. We might perhaps venture to add 
Umbri and Sabini.^ Ausoncs is the Greek form o^ Auruni, whence Au- 
runici, Aurunci. The Latin language luxuriates in adjectival termi- 
nations. See Niebuhr, i. 69, TioZe; and Buttmann's Lexilogus, in v. 
arch] yuia, note. 

t See Niebuhr, i. 78 and 37]. This writer (i. 79, 80) says that it 
is to the Latins that the term Aborigines, answering to the Autochthones 
of the Greeks, belongs. The general usage of ancient and modern 
writers names the people of tlie interior the Aborigines. 

X It was the old Roman custom to omit the copulative between 
words which usually appeared in union, as cmpti vcnditi, locaii con- 
ducti, socii Latint, acccnsi vdati. Like Gothic among ourselves, Cascus 
and Priscus came to signify old or old-fasliioned. 

§ In the Latin, the terms relating to agriculture and the gentler 
modes of life are akin to the Greek ; those belonging to war and the 
chase are of a different character. Of the former we may instance 



I 

THE SAB ELL IAN S. 5 

existing monuments^ in the Oscan and Umbrian languages 
present exactly the same appearance, and the foreign element 
seems to be the same in all. Hence it may without pre- 
sumption be inferred, that kindred tribes speaking the same, 
or dialects of the same language, conquered and coalesced 
with the Pelasgians, and new languages were formed by inter- 
mixture, just as the English arose from the Anglo-Saxon and 
the Norman-French. 

The people who are supposed to have given totheCascans 
and Oscans the impulse which drove them down on the 
Pelasgians, are the Sabines, who dwelt about Amiternum in 
the higher Apennines. The Sabellian race (under which 
name we include the Sabines and all the colonies which 
issued from them) was evidently akin to those above men- 
tioned, for there can be little doubt of their language being 
the non-Pelasgic part of the Latin and Oscan. This race 
spread rapidly on all sides. The Sabines, properly so called, 
having occupied the country of the Cascans, gradually 
pushed on along the valley of the Tiber into Latium ; the 
Picenians settled on the coast of the Adriatic ; the four 
allied cantons of the Marsians, Marrucinians, Vestinians, 
and Pelignians dwelt to the south of them and the Sabines ; 
and below them were the Samnites, divided into the cantons 
of the Frentanians, Hirpinians, Pentrians, and Caudines, 
who conquered the mountain-country of the Oscans, hence- 
forth named Samnium. At a later period, (about the year 
of Rome 314,) the Samnites made themselves masters of 
Campania and the country to the Silarus. Under the name 
of Lucanians they also conquered, much about the same 
time, the country south of Samnium, the more southern 
part of which was afterwards wrested from them by the 
Bruttians, a people which arose out of the mercenary troops 
employed by the Lucanians and Italian Greeks in their 
wars, and the CEnotrian serfs of the latter.* Another Sa- 
bellian people were the Hernicans, who possessed a hilly 
region south of Latium in the midst of the ^quian and 
Volscian states. 

Different in origin, language, and manners from all the 

hos, taurus, sus, ovis, agrius, canis, ager, silva, mnum, lac, mel, sal, oleum, 
malum ; of the latter, arma, tela, hasta, ensis, gladius, arcus, sagitta, 
clupeus, cassis, halteus. (Niebuhr, i. 82. Muller, i. 17.) 

* In Oscan, and perhaps in old Latin, hrutus signified a runaway 
slave, a maroon. Names of reproach have often been acquiesced in 
by peoples and parties ; witness our Whig and Tory. 
] * 



b HISTORY OF ROME. 

tribes already enumerated were the people named by them- 
selves Rasena, by the Romans, Etruscans and Tuscans, 
who occupied the country between the Tiber and the Arno, 
and also dwelt in the plain of the Po. The common opin- 
ion was that they were a colony from Maeonia or Lydia 
in Asia, who landed on the coast of Etruria, where they re- 
duced the inhabitants to serfship, and, afterwards crossing 
the Apennines, conquered the country thence to the Alps. 
Against this it was urged * that there was not the slightest 
similarity in manners, language, or religion between them 
and the Lydians, aiid that the latter retained no tradition 
whatever of the migration. It has been further remarked t 
that the Raetians and other Alpine tribes were of the Tus- 
can race ; and it is so highly improbable that the oAvners 
of fruitful plains should covet the possession of barren 
mountains, that it is more reasonable to suppose them to have 
dwelt originally among, or northwards of, the Alps, and 
that being pressed on by the Germans, Celts, or some other 
people, they descended and made conquests in Italy. | 
Their languacre, as far as it is understood, has not the 
slightest resemblance to any of the primitive languages of 
Europe or Asia; their religious system and their science 
were also peculiar to themselves ; the love of pomp and 
state also distino-uished them from the Greeks and other 
European peoples. Taken all together, they are perhaps the 
most enigmatic people in history. 

The Tuscan political number was twelve. North of the 
Apennines twelve cities or states formed a federation ; the 
game was the case in Etruria Proper. § Each was indepen- 
dent, ruling over its district and its subject towns. The 
Tuscan Lucumones or nobles were, like the Chaldaeans, a 

* Dionysius, i. 28. 

t Niebuhr. This author is inclined to extend the original seats of 
the Tuscans far north even to Alsatia. 

t Muller would fain reconcile the two opinions. He regards the 
Rasena as an original Italian people of the Apennines and plain of the 
Po, who, when they proceeded to conquer Etruria from the Umbrians 
and Ligurians, leagued themselves with the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians 
from the coast of Asia who had settled on the coast. Hence he ex- 
plains tlie use of flutes, trumpets, and other usages, common to the 
Tuscans with the people of Asia. 

§ These last, Ni-ebuhr says, are Ctere, Tarquinii, Rusella?, Vetulo- 
nium, Volaterra), Arretium, Cortona, Clusium, Volsinii, Veil, and Ca- 
pena or Cossa ; of the former he can only name Felsina or Bononia, 
Melpum, Mantua, Verona, and Hatria. He denies that the Tuscans 
ever settled in Campania, as was asserted by the ancients. Milller 
maintains the converse. 



THE ITALIAN GREEKS. 7 

sacerdotal military caste, holding the religion and govern- 
ment of the state in their exclusive possession, and keeping 
the people in the condition of serfs. In some of their cities, 
such as Veii, there were elective kings. The Lucumones 
learned the will of heaven from the lio-htninor and other celes- 
tial phenomena ; their religion was gloomy, and abounding 
in rites and ceremonies. Both the useful and the orna- 
mental arts were carried to great perfection in Etruria. 
Lakes were let oif by tunnels, sw^amps rendered fertile, 
rivers confined, huge Cyclopian walls raised round towns. 
Statues, vessels, and other articles were executed in clay 
and bronze with both skill and taste. These arts, however, 
may have been known and exercised by the subject people 
rather than by the Tuscan lords. 

The Ligurians, a people who dwelt without Italy from 
the Pyrennees to the maritime Alps, also extended into the 
peninsula, reaching originally south of the Arno and east 
of the Ticinus. They were neither Celts nor Iberians, but 
of their language we have no specimens remaining. 

Such were the peoples of Italy in the ages antecedent to 
history. About the time of the Dorian migration, the 
Greeks began to colonize its southern part. The Chal- 
cidians and Eretrians of Euboea founded Cumse, Parthenope, 
and Neapolis on the west coast, and Rhegium at the strait; 
Elea (Velia) was built on the same coast by the Phocoeans. 
On the east coast, Locri was a colony from Ozolian Locris; 
and it founded in its turn Medma and Hipponium on the 
west coast ; the Acheeans were the founders of Sybaris, Cro- 
ton, and Metapontum; and Sybaris having extended her 
dominion across to the Lower Sea, founded on it Laos and 
Posidonia : the Crotonians built Caulon on the Upper, Terina 
on the Lower Sea ; and Tarentum, in the peninsula of Japy- 
gia, was a settlement of the Lacedaemonians. The ancient 
CEnotria became, so completely Hellenised, (its original 
population being reduced to serfship,) that it was named 
Great Greece — Magna GrcBcia. The flourishing period, 
however, of these Grecian states, was anterior to that which 
our history embraces, and we shall have occasion only to 
sj>eak of them in their decline. 

The religion of the two original portions of the Italian 
population was, as far as we can conjecture, of a simple, 
rural character. It does not seem to have known the hor- 
rors of human sacrifice; and though polytheistic, it related 
no tales of the amours of its gods, and no Italian princes 



8 HISTORY OF ROME. 

boasted an affinity with the deities whom "the people wor- 
shipped. Partly from this, partly from other causes, the tone 
of morals was at all times higher in Italy, especially among 
the Sabellian tribes, than in Greece. A remarkable feature 
of the old Italian religion was the immense number of its 
deities;* every act of life had its presiding power; a man 
was ever under the eye, as it were, of a superior being : the 
true doctrine of the omnipresence of the one God was thus, 
we may say, resolved into the separate presence of a multi- 
tude, the moral effect, though far inferior, was, we may 
hope, similar. Finally, the ancient Italians are perhaps 
not to be esteemed idolaters, as images of the gods were 
unknown among them till they became acquainted with 
Grecian art. 

The prevailing political form of ancient Italy was that of 
aristocratic republics united in federations. The hereditary 
monarchy of the heroic age of Greece was unknown, and 
the pure democracy of its historic period never developed 
itself in Italy. Political numbers are to be found here as in 
Greece and elsewhere ; four, for example, was the Sabellian 
number; thirty, or rather perhaps three subdivided by ten, 
that of Latium.t This principle extended even to the Tus- 
cans, whose number, as we have seen, was twelve. 



CHAPTER II.| 

iENEAS AND THE TROJANS. ALBA. NUMITOR AND AMULIUS. 

^ ROMULUS AND REMUS. BUILDING OF ROME. REIGN 

OF ROMULUS. ROMAN CONSTITUTION. NUMA POMPILIUS. 

TULLUS HOSTILIUS. ANGUS BIARCIUS. 

On the left bank of the river Tiber, at a moderate distance 
from the sea, lies a cluster of hills,§ which were the destined 

* When, therefore, Varro spoke of 30,000 gods, he must have meant 
the Italian, not the Grecian system; for the Olympian deities, even 
including the Nymphs, never extended to any such number. 

t The thirty Latin and thirty Alban towns, the thirty patrician 
curies in three tribes, and the thirty plebeian tribes at Rome. 

t The principal authorities for this Part are Dionysius and Liyy j 
and Plutarch's lives of Romulus, Numa, and Poplicola. 

§ They were seven in number, lying in the following order : the 



^NEAS AND THE TROJANS. . 9 

seat of the city whose dominion gradually extended until 
it embraced the greater portion of the then known world ; 
and whose language, laws, and institutions gave origin to 
those of a large portion of modern Europe. 

The origin and early history of this mighty city have 
been transmitted to us by its most ancient annalists in the 
following form.* 

When the wide-famed Troy, after having held out for ten 
years against the Achaean arms, was verging toward its fall, 
yEneas, a hero whom the goddess Venus (Aphrodite) had 
borne to a Trojan prince named Anchises, resolved to 
abandon the devoted town. Led by the god Mercurius, 
(Hermes,) and accompanied by his father, family, and 
friends, he left Troy the very night it was taken, and retired 
to Mount Ida, where he remained till the town was sacked 
and burnt, and the Achaeans had departed. The god, con- 
tinuing his care, built for them a ship, in which they em- 
barked : an oracle (some said that of Dodona) directed them 
to sail on westwards, till they came to where hunger would 
oblige them to eat their tables, and told them that a four- 
footed animal would there guide them to the site of their 
future abode. The morning-star shone before them, day 
and night, to guide their course, and it never ceased to be 
visible till they reached the coast of Latium in Italy.t They 
landed there on a barren, sandy shore; and as they were 
taking their first meal, they chanced to use their flat cakes 
for platters; and when, at the conclusion of their repast, 
they began to consume their cakes also, JEneas' young son 
cried out that they were eating their tables. Struck with 
the fulfilment of a part of the oracle, the Trojans, by order 
of their chief, brought the images of their gods on shore ; 
an altar was erected, and a pregnant white sow led to it as 
a victim. Suddenly the sow broke loose, and ran into the 
country. /Eneas, with a few companions, followed her till 

Tarpeian or Capitoline, the Palatine, and the Aventine along the 
river ; the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, and Caelian, behind the Tar- 
peian and Palatine. The hill named the Janiculan was on the oppo- 
site side of the Tiber. 

* " I insist," says Niebuhr, '' in behalf of my Romans, on the right 
of taking the poetical features wherever they are to be found, when 
they have dropped out of the common narrative." The circumstances 
in the following narrative, differing from those in Livy and Virgil, will 
be found in Dionysius, Cato, (in Servius on the iEneis,) and Ovid, and 
other poets. 

t Varro in Servius on ^n. ii. 801. 



10 ' HISTORY OF ROME. 

Tshe reached an eminence about three miles from the sea, 
where, exhausted by fatigue, she laid her down. This then, 
JEneas saw, was the site designated by the oracle ; but his 
heart sank when he viewed the ungenial nature of the sur- 
rounding soil, and the adjacent coast without a haven. He 
lay that night on the spot in the open air; and as he pon- 
dered, a voice from a neighboring wood came to his ear, 
directing him to build there without delay; broad lands, 
it was added, awaited himself, and wide dominion his de- 
scendants, who, within as many years as the sow should 
farrow young ones, would build a larger and a fairer town. 
In the morning he found that the sow had farrowed thirty 
white young ones, which with herself he offered in sacrifice 
to the gods. He led his people thither, and commenced the 
building of a town.* 

The country in which the Trojans Vv'ere now settling was 
governed by a prince named Latinus, who, on hearing that 
strangers were raising a town, came to oppose them. He 
was, however, induced to allow them to proceed, and he 
granted them seven hundred jugers of land around it.t The 
harmony which prevailed between them and the natives was, 
however, soon disturbed by the Trojans' wounding a favorite 
stag V of King Latinus'. This monarch took up arms; he 
was joined by Turnus, the Rutulian prince of Ardea; but 
victory was with the strangers ; Latinus' capital, Laurentum, 
was taken, and himself slain in the storming of the citadel. | 
His only daughter Lavinia became the prize of the victor, 
who made her his wife, and named his town from her La- 
vinium.<^ 

Turnus now applied for aid to Mezentius, king of Caere 
in Etruria. The Tuscan demanded, as the price of his as- 
sistance, half the produce of the vintage of Latium in the 
next year, and the Rutulians readily agreed to his terms. 

* According to CatO; (Serv. on iEn. i. 6. vii. 158,) the town first built 
by jEneas and Anchises (who also reached Italy) was not on the future 
site of Lavinium, and it was named Troja. In Latin, troja is a soic, 
hence probably the legend ; alha (white) refers to Alba ; the thirty 
young, to the Latin political number. 

t Supposing that, according to the Roman custom hereafter to be 
noticed, this was 7 jugers a man, the Trojans, according to this tradi- 
tion, were but 100 in number. 

X Cato in Servius on I^n. ix. 745. 

§ The reader will observe how this differs from the narrative in 
Virgil. We may take it as a rule, that the rudest and most revolting 
form of a legend is its most ancient one. 



NUMITOR AND AMULIUS. 11 

Their united arms encountered those of the Latins, led by 
^neas, on the banks of the Numicius ; Turnus fell, but the 
Trojans were defeated. JEneas plunged into the stream, and 
never more was seen, and after-ages worshipped him on its 
banks as Jupiter Indiges. The Tuscans then beleaguered 
Lavinium ; but lulus, the son of JEneas, having vowed the 
half-produce of the vineyards claimed by Mezentius to Ju- 
piter, led forth his troops to battle. The favor of the god 
was with the pious youth, and Mezentius fell by his hand. 

After thirty years, lulus left the low sandy coast, and led 
his people to a mountain twelve miles inland, on the side 
ofwhich he built a town, named Alba Longa, [Long white,) 
from its appearance, as it stretched in one long street along 
the precipitous margin of a lake. During three hundred 
years, his successors (named the Silvii) reigned at Alba, the 
lords of the surrounding country ; but tradition spake not of 
their deeds. Procas, one of these kings, when dying, left two 
sons, named Numitor and Amulius. The former, who was the 
elder, being of a meek, peaceful temper, his ambitious brother 
wrested from him the sceptre of the Silvii, leaving him only 
his paternal demesnes, on which he allowed him to live in 
quiet ; but fearing the spirit of Numitor's son, he caused 
him to be murdered as he was out a-hunting ; and he placed 
his daughter Silvia, his only remaining child, among the 
Vestal virgins, who were bound to celibacy. The race of 
Aphrodite and Anchises seemed destined to become extinct, 
for Amulius was childless, when a god interposed to pre- 
serve it and give it additional lustre. One day when Silvia 
was gone into the sacred grove of Mars to draw water for 
the use of the temple, a wolf suddenly appeared before her; 
the terrified maiden fled for refuge into a cavern ; the god 
descended and embraced her. When retiring, he assured 
her that she would be the mother of an illustrious progeny. 
Silvia told not her secret ; and at the due time the pains of 
labor seized her in the very temple of Vesta. The image 
of the virgin goddess placed its hands before its eyes to 
avoid the unhallowed sight, and the perpetual flame on the 
altar drew back amidst the embers.* She brought forth 
two male children, whom the ruthless tyrant ordered to be 
cast, with their mother, into the River Tiber. Silvia here 
became the spouse of the god of the stream, and immortal. 
The care of Mars was extended to his progeny ; the bole or 

* Ovid, Fasti, iii. 45—48. 



12 HISTORY OF ROME. 

ark in which the babes were placed floated along the river, 
which had overflowed its banks, till it reached the woody 
hills on its side,* at the foot of one of which, the Palatine, 
and close to the Ruminal fig-tree, it ov«erturned on the soft 
mud. A she-wolf, the sacred beast of Mars, which came 
to slake her thirst, heard the whimpering of the babes ; she 
took and conveyed them to her den on the hill, licked their 
bodies with her tongue, and suckled them at her dugs. 
Under her care they throve ; and when they required more 
solid food it was brought them by a woodpecker, (picus,) 
an animal sacred, like the wolf, to their sire ; and other birds 
of augury hovered round the cave to keep off" noxious in- 
sects. At length, this wonderful sight was beheld by Faus- 
tulus, the keeper of the royal flocks : he approached the cave; 
the she-wolf retired, her task being done ; and he took 
home the babes and committed them to the care of his wife, 
Acca Larentia, by whom they were carefully reared along 
with her own twelve sons in their cottage on the Palatine. 

When the two brothers, who were named Romulus and 
Remus, grew up, they were distinguished among the shep- 
herd lads for their strength and courage, which they dis- 
played against the wild beasts and the robbers, and the neigh- 
boring swains. Their chief disputes were with the herds- 
men of Numitor, who fed their cattle on the adjacent Aven- 
tine, and whom they frequently defeated ; but at length 
Remus was made a prisoner by stratagem, and dragged 
away as a robber to Alba. The king gave him up for 
punishment to Numitor, who, struck with the noble ap- 
pearance of the youth, inquired of him who and what he 
was. On hearing the story of his infancy, he began to 
suspect that he might be his grandson; but he confined his 
thoughts to his own bosom. Meantime, Faustulus had re> 
vealed to Romulus his suspicions of his royal birth, and the 
youth resolved to release his brother and restore his grand- 
sire to his rights. By his directions his comrades entered 
Alba at different parts, and there uniting under him, fell 
on and slew the tyrant, and then placed Numitor on the 
throne of his ancestors. 

The two brothers, regardless of the succession to the 
throne of Alba, resolved to found a town for themselves on 
the hills where they had passed the happy days of child- 
hood. Their old rustic comrades joined them in their pro- 

* Conon, Narr. 48. 



BUILDING OF ROME. 13 

ject, and they were preparing to build, when a dispute arose 
between them, whether it should be on the Palatine and 
named Roma, or on the Aventine and called Remoria.* It 
was agreed to learn the will of heaven by augury. Each at 
midnight took his station on his favorite hill, marked out 
the celestial temple, and sat expecting the birds of omen. 
Day came and passed ; night followed ; toward dawn, the 
second day, Remus beheld six vultures flymg from north to 
south; the tidings came to Romulus at sunrise, and just 
then twelve vultures flew past. A contest arose ; though 
right was on the side of Remus, Romulus asserted that the 
double number announced the will of the gods, and his 
party proved the stronger. 

The Palatine was therefore to be the site of the future 
city. Romulus yoked a bullock and a heifer to the plough, 
whose share was copper, and drove it round the hill to form 
the pomcRrium, or boundary line. On this line they began 
to make a ditch and rampart. Remus in scorn leaped over 
the rising wall, and Romulus enraged slew him with a 
blow, exclaiming, " Thus perish whoever will leap over my 
walls ! " t Grief, however, soon succeeded, and he was not 
comforted till the shade of Remus appeared to their foster- 
parents, and announced his forgiveness on condition of a 
festival, to be named from him, being instituted for the 
souls of the departed.! A throne was also placed for him 
by Romulus beside his own, with the sceptre and other 
tokens of royalty.^ 

As a means of augmenting the population of his new 
town, Romulus readily admitted any one who chose to re- 
pair to it ; he also marked out a spot on the side of the 
Tarpeian hill as an asylum to receive insolvent debtors, 
criminals, and runaway slaves. The population thus rap- 
idly increased, but from its nature it contained few women, 
and therefore the state was menaced with a brief duration. 
To obviate this evil, Romulus sent to the neighboring 
towns, proposing to them treaties of amity and intermar- 
riage; but his overtures were every where received with 
aversion and contempt. He then had recourse to artifice ; 

* Another account says at a place four miles further down the river. 
Ennius makes Romulus take his augury on the Aventine. 

t Those who would soften the legend said he was slain by a man 
named Celer. 

X The Lemuria, Ovid, Fasti, v. 461 — 480. 

§ Servius on Mn. i. 276. 

2 



14 , ' HISTORY OF ROME. 

he proclaimed games to be celebrated at Rome on the fes- 
tival of the Consualia, to which he invited all his neigh- 
bors. The Latins and Sabines came without suspicion, 
bringing their wives and daughters; but in the midst of 
the festivities, the Roman youth rushed on them with drawn 
swords, and carried off a number of their maidens. The 
parents fled, calling on the gods to avenge the perfidious 
breach of faith, and the neighboring Latin towns of Cae- 
nina, Crustumerium, and AntemnjB, joined by Titus Tatius, 
king of the Sabines, prepared to take up arms. But the 
Latins, impatient of the delay of the Sabines, and acting 
without concert among themselves, singly attacked and 
were overcome by the Romans. At length, Tatius led his 
troops against Rome. The Saturnian or Tarpeian hill, op- 
posite the town, was fortifieds and had a garrison; but Tar- 
peia, the daughter of the governor, having gone down to 
draw water, met the Sabines, and dazzled by the gold 
bracelets which they wore, agreed to open a gate for them 
if they would give her what they bore on their left arms. 
She kept her promise ; but the Sabines cast their shields 
from their left arms on her as they entered, and the traitress 
expired beneath their weight. The hill thus became the 
possession of the Sabines. 

Next day the armies encountered in the valley between 
the two hills. The advantage w^as on the side of the Sa- 
bines, and the Romans were flying, Vv^^hen Romulus cried 
aloud to Jupiter, vowing him a temple under the name of 
Stator, [Stayer,) if he would stay their flight. The Romans 
turned ; victory was inclining to them, when suddenly the 
Sabine women came forth with garments rent and dishev- 
elled locks, and rushing between the two armies, implored 
their fathers and their husbands to cease from the impious 
conflict. Both sides dropped their arms and stood in silence ; 
the leaders then advanced to conference, a treaty of amity 
and union was made, and Romulus and Tatius became joint 
sovereigns of the united nation, the Romans taking the 
name of Q,uirites from the Sabine town of Cures. As a 
mark of honor to the Sabine women, Romulus named from 
them the thirty curies into which he divided his people. 

Some years after, when Laurentine ambassadors came 
to Rome, they were ill treated by some of Tatius' kinsmen; 
and as he refused satisfaction, he was fallen on and slain 
at a national sacrifice in Lavinium. Romulus henceforth 
reigned alone ; he governed his people with justice and 



ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 15 

moderation, and carried on successful wars in Latiurn and 
Etruria. At length, when he had reigned thirty-seven years, 
the term assigned by the gods to his abode on earth being 
arrived, as he was one day reviewing his people at the place 
named the Goat's Marsh, [Palus Caprcs,) a sudden storm 
came on ; the people fled for shelter ; and, amid the tempest 
of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain, Mars descended in 
his flaming car, and bore his son ofl* to the abode of the 
gods.* When the light returned, the people vainly sought 
for their monarch ; they bewailed him as their father, as 
him who had brought them into the realms of day;t and 
they were not consoled till a senator, named Proculus Julius, 
came forwards, and averred that as he was returning by 
moonlight from Alba to Rome, Romulus had appeared to 
him arrayed in glory, and charged him to tell his people to 
cease to lament him, to cultivate warlike exercises, and to 
worship him as a god under the name of Q,uirinus. 

As the founder of the state, Romulus had necessarily been 
its lawgiver. The chief features of his legislation were as 
follows : — 

He divided the whole people into three Tribes, ( Tribus,) 
named Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres, each of which con- 
tained ten Curies, {Curice,) and each cury consisted of a 
decad of Houses, (Gentes.) The tribe was governed and 
represented by its Tribune, {Tribunus,) the cury by its Cu- 
rion, {Curio,) the house by its Decurion, {Decurio.) The 
territory of the state, with the exception of what was set 
apart for religion and the public domain, was divided into' 
thirty equal portions, one for each cury. Romulus again 
divided the whole people into two orders. The first was 
composed of the persons most distinguished for merit, birth, 
and property; these were called Patres, {Fathers,) and their 
descendants Patricians, as a mark of reverence, or as they 
resembled fathers in their care. The other order was named 
the Plebes or Plebs, [People ;)\ they were placed under the 
care of the patricians, whence they were also called Clients, 
{Clientes, i. e. Hearers., or Oheyers.) § All the offices of the 
state were in the hands of the patricians : the plebeians 
served in war, and paid taxes in return for the protection 

* Horace, Carm. iii. 3. 15. Ovid, Fasti, ii. 496. Dionys. ii. 56. 
t Ennias in Cic. de Rep. i, 41. 
X Plebes is probably akin to the Greek nXfJ-d-og. 
§ These relations, and their true nature, will be explained in Chap- 
ter V". 



16 HISTORY OF ROME. 

they received. A hundred of the elders of the patres 
formed a Senate, {Senatus,) to deliberate with the king in 
affairs of state. Three hundred young men, selected from 
the curies, and named Celeres, guarded his person ; and 
twelve Lictors {Lictores) * or sergeants, bearing axes in 
bundles of rods, [fasces,) attended to execute his commands. 
Romulus also gave dignity to his royal authority by splendor 
of attire and imperial ensigns. 

After the assumption of Romulus, Rome remained an 
entire year without a king; the senators, under the title of 
Interreges, (Between-kings,) governing in rotation. At 
length the people becoming impatient, they proceeded to 
elect a king. It was agreed that the Romans should choose 
from among the Sabines; and the choice fell on Numa 
Pompilius of Cures, who had married the daughter of Ta- 
tius, and had been the pupil of the Grecian sage Pythagoras. 
He was brought to Rome, and as Romulus had learned the 
will of the gods by augury when founding the city, this pious 
prince would not ascend the throne without obtaining their 
consent in the same manner. Led by the augur, he mounted 
the Saturnian hill, and sat on a stone facing the south. The 
augur sat on his left, his head veiled, and holding the 
lituusf in his right hand; then marking out the celestial 
temple, he transferred the lituus to his left hand, and laying 
his right on the head of Numa, prayed to Jupiter to send the 
signs he wished within the designated limits. The signs 
appeared, and Numa came down, being declared king. 

The new monarch set forthwith about regulating the 
state. He divided among the citizens the lands which Rom- 
ulus had conquered, and founded the worship of Terminus, 
the god of boundaries. He then proceeded to legislate for 
religion, in which he acted under the direction of the Ca- 
mena| Egeria, who espoused him, and led him into the grove 
which her divine sisters frequented. Numa appointed the 
Pontiffs to preside over the public religion ; the Augurs, to 
learn the will of heaven ; the Flamens, to minister in the 
temples of the great gods of Rome ; the Vestal Virgins, to 
guard the sacred fire ; and the Salii, to adore the gods with 
hymns, to which they danced in arms. He also built the 
temple of Janus, which was to be open in time of war. 



* That is, Ligatores, (Binders,) from their office of binding criminals, 
t A staff with a crooked head, like a bishop's crosier, 
t The Camence answer to the Grecian Muses. 



TULLUS HOSTILIUS. 17 

closed when Rome was at peace. At a time when the anger 
of heaven was manifested by terrific lightning, Numa, in- 
structed by the rural gods Picus and Faunus, whom he had 
caught by pouring wine into the fount whence they drank, 
caused by conjurations Jupiter to descend on the Aventine 
to tell him how his lightnings might be averted. The god, 
thence named JElicius, also sent from heaven the Ancile* as 
a pledge of empire. Thirty-nine years did Numa reign in 
tranquillity, and then the favorite of the gods fell asleep in 
death, full of years and of honors. 

After an interreign of a short time, the royal dignity was 
conferred on Tullus Hostilius, a Roman, and more allied in 
character to Romulus than to Numa. He sought and soon 
found an occasion for war. The Roman and the Alban 
country folk had mutually plundered each other ; envoys 
were sent from both towns to demand satisfaction ; but the 
Albans, beguiled by the hospitality of the Roman king, re- 
mained idle at Rome, while the Romans had made their de- 
mand, and been refused. As, by the maxims of Italian law, 
the Romans were now the injured party, war was formally 
declared. Preparations were made on both sides, and at 
length the Alban army came and encamped within five miles 
of Rome, where the deep ditch, named the Cluilian, (from 
the name of their King Cluilius,) long informed posterity of 
the site of their camp. Here Cluilius died, and Mettius 
FufFetius was chosen dictator. Meantime Kino- Tullus had 
entered the Alban territory, and Mettius found it necessary 
to quit his entrenched camp, and advance to engage him. 
The two armies met, and were drawn out in array of battle, 
when the Alban chief demanded a conference. The leaders 
on both sides advanced to the middle, and Mettius then 
showing how the Tuscans, their common enemies, would 
take advantage of their mutual losses, and destroy them 
both, proposed to decide the national quarrel by a combat 
of champions to be chosen on each side. The Roman 
monarch assented, though he would have preferred the 
shock of two numerous hosts. 

There were in each army three twin-brothers, whose 
mothers were sisters; the Romans were named the Horatii, 
the Albans the Curiatii.t To these the fates of their respec- 

* The sacred shield borne by the Salii ; lest it should be stolen, 
Numa had several others made like it. See Ovid, Fasti, iii. 259-:-3y2. 

t According to some, the Horatii were the Albans. The Horatian 
gens at Rome belonged to the Luceres. 

2* c 



18 HISTORY OF ROME. 

tive countries were committed. The treaty was made in 
due form, and that state, whose champions were vanquished, 
was to submit to the rule of the other. The brothers ad- 
vanced on each side ; both armies sat down in their ranks 
to view the important combat ; the signal was given, the 
champions drew their swords, and engaged hand to hand ; 
dread and expectation bound the spectators in silence. At 
length, two of the Romans were seen to fall dead, the third 
was unhurt; the Albans were all wounded. A shout of 
triumph rose in the Alban army ; hope fled from the Ro- 
mans. The surviving Horatius, unable to cope with his 
three adversaries, though enfeebled, feigned a flight. They 
pursued, but, owing to their weakness, at different intervals. 
Soon he turned, and slew the first. The Albans vainly called 
to his brothers to aid ; they fell each in turn by the sword 
of the Roman, and Alba submitted to Rome. 

When the dead on both sides had been buried, the two 
armies separated. Horatius, bearing the spoils of the slain 
Curiatii, walked at the head of the Romans. At the Ca- 
pene gate, when about to enter the city, he was met by 
his sister, who had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii, 
and recoo-nizins her lover's surcoat, which she had v/oven 
with her own hands, she let fall her hair, and bewailed his 
fate. The victor, enraged, drew his sword and struck it 
into her bosom, crying, " Such be the fate of her who be- 
wails an enemy of Rome ! " Horror seized on all at the atro- 
cious deed: the murderer was taken for trial before the 
king; but Tullus shrank from the office, and the affair was 
committed to the ordinary judges in such cases, (the Duum- 
virs,) by whom he was sentenced to be scourged, and to 
be hung with a rope from the fatal tree with his head cov- 
ered. The lictor approached, and was placing the halter 
on him, when, at the suggestion of the king, he appealed 
to the people. His father pleaded for him with tears ; the 
people were moved, and let him go free. Purgative sacri- 
fices were performed, and he was made to walk with covered 
head under a beam placed across the way. 

The treaty, thus sealed with kindred blood, did not remain 
long unbroken. The Albans, weary of subjection, sent se- 
cretly to excite the people of Fidenee to war against Rome, 
promising to go over to them in the battle. The Fide- 
nates, joined by their allies^ the Veientines of Etruria, de- 
clared war, and Tullus, having summoned an Alban army 
to his standard, crossed the Anio, and took his post at its 



TULLUS HOSTILIUS. 19 

confluence with the Tiber. The Romans were opposed to 
the Veientines, the Albans to the Fidenates. Mettius, cow- 
ardly as treacherous, would neither stay nor go over to the 
enemy. He gradually drew off to the hills, and there dis- 
posed his troops. The Romans, finding their flank thus left 
exposed, sent to inform the king, but Tullus telling them 
that the Albans were acting by his order, desired them to 
fall on. The Fidenates, hearing these orders, and deeming 
that Mettius was a traitor to them, turned and fled. Tullus 
then broucrht all his forces acrainst the Etrurians, and drove 
them with great slaughter into the river. The Albans 
came down, and their general congratulated the king on 
his victory. Tullus received him kindly, and directed that 
the two armies should encamp together, and a lustral sacri- 
fice be prepared for the morrow. Next morning he called 
a general assembly ; the Albans, with affected zeal, came 
first, and stood unarmed around the king, by whose direc- 
tions they were encompassed by the Romans in arms. Tul- 
lus then spoke, reproaching Mettius with his treachery, and 
declaring his intention of destroying Alba, and removing 
the inhabitants to Rome. Resistance was hopeless ; Met- 
tius was seized, and to suit his punishment to his crime, 
two chariots were brought, to which his limbs were tied, 
and one driven toward Rome, the other toward Fidenas, 
and the traitor's body thus torn asunder. Meantime the 
horsemen had been sent to Alba to remove the people to 
Rome ; the infantry followed, in order to demolish the town. 
The people, yielding to necessity, quitted with tears the 
homes of their infancy and the tombs of their fathers ; all 
the buildings, both public and private, were destroyed ; the 
temples of the gods alone were left standing. At Rome 
the Albans were favorably received, and their nobles ad- 
mitted among the patricians. The Caelian hill was added 
to the city for their abode, and the king himself dwelt on 
it among them. 

The warlike king next engaged in hostilities with the 
Sabines, on the pretext of their having seized some Roman 
traders at the fair held at the temple of Feronia. The Sa- 
bines hired mercenary troops in Etruria, but victory was on 
the side of Rome in a battle fought at the Evil Wood, (Silva 
Malitiosa.) Tullus was now at peace with mankind, but a 
shower of stones on the Alban Mount announced the dis- 
pleasure of heaven. At the mandate of a celestial voice 
heard on the mount, a nine-day festival was instituted, and 



20 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the prodigy ceased ; but soon after a pestilence came on, 
and Tullus, broken in mind and body, gave himself up to 
superstition. Having read in the books of Numa of the 
sacrifices to Jupiter Elicius, he resolved to perform them ; 
but erring in the rites, he offended the god, and the light- 
nings descended and destroyed himself and his house. Tul- 
lus had reigned thirty-two years. 

The next king, Ancus Marcius, was of the Sabine line, 
being the son of Numa's daughter. His character vv^as a 
mean between those of his grandsire and Romulus. Like the 
former, he applied himself to the revival of religion; and he 
had the ceremonial law transcribed and hung up in public. 
But the Latins, despising his pacific occupations, soon pro^ 
voked him to war, where he showed a spirit not unworthy 
of the founder of Rome. He took the towns of Politorium, 
Tellena, and Ficana, and having given the Latin army a 
total defeat under the walls of Medullia, he removed the 
people of this and the other towns to Rome, where he as- 
signed them the Aventine for their abode. 

Ancus also won from the Veientines some of the land 
beyond the Tiber, where he fortified the Janiculan hill, and 
united it to the city by a wooden bridge, [Pons Sublicius.) 
To secure Rome on the land side he dug a deep ditch 
(Fossa Quiritiiim) before the open space between the 
Cselian and Palatine hills. He extended his dominion on 
both sides of the river to the sea, where he built the port 
of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber. After a useful and a 
prosperous reign of twenty-four years, King Ancus died in 
peace. 



CHAPTER HL 

L TARQUINIUS PRISCUS. SERVIUS TULLIUS. L. TARQUINIUS 

SUPERBUS. TALE OF LUCRETIA. ABOLITION OF ROYAL- 
TY. CONSPIRACY AT ROME. DEATH OF BRUTUS. WAR 

WITH PORSENNA. BATTLE OF THE REGILLUS. 

Hitherto the kino;s had been Romans and Sabines alter- 

nately ; the sceptre now passes into the hands of a stranger. 

When Cypselus overthrew the oligarchy of the Bacchiads 



L. TARQUINIUS PRISCUS. 21 

at Corinth,* a member of this family, named Demaratus, 
resolved to emigrate. He fixed on Tarquinii, in Etraria, for 
his abode, as, being an extensive merchant, he had formed 
many connections in that city ; and he came thither accom- 
panied by the sculptors, Euchir, [Good-hand,) and Eugram- 
mus, [Oood-drmoer,) and the painter Cleophantus, [Deed- 
displai/e7',)f whose arts and that of writing he communicated 
to the Etruscans. He married a woman of the country, who 
bore him two sons, named Aruns and Lucurao. The former 
died a little before him, leaving his wife pregnant; but 
DemaratLis, unaware of this fact, bequeathed the whole of his 
wealth to Lucumo, and the new-born babe, who was there- 
fore named Egerius, {Lacker,) was left entirely dependent 
on his uncle. 

Lucumo espoused an Etruscan lady named Tanaquil, and 
finding, on account of his foreign origin, all the avenues to 
honor and power closed against him, he listened to the 
suggestions of his wife, and resolved to emigrate to Rome, 
where there was no jealous aristocratic caste to contend with. 
He therefore quitted Tarquinii, and set out for that city. 
As, he and Tanaquil were sitting in their chariot, taking 
their first view of Rome from the top of the Janiculan, an 
eagle came flying, and gently descending took off his bonnet, 
and with a loud noise bore it into the air; then returning 
placed it again on his head. Tanaquil, as a Tuscan skilled 
in augury, joyfully received the omen, and congratulated 
her husband on the fortune it portended. Elate with hope, 
they crossed the Sublician bridge and entered Rome, where 
Lucumo assumed the name of Lucius Tarquinius Priscns, 
and, by his polished manners and his liberality, soon won 
the affections of the people. He became, ere long, known 
to the king, Ancus, who employed him in both public and 
private affairs of importance, and when dying appointed him 
guardian to his sons. 

But Tarquinius now deemed himself sufficiently strong 
in the favor of the people to aspire to the vacant throne. 
Having sent the young Marcii out a-hunting, so that they 
should be away at the time of the election, he offered him- 
self as a candidate : the people unanimously chose him king, 
and the senate confirmed their choice. To gratify his friends, 
he forthwith added one hundred members to the senate, and 
then to augment his fame engaged in war with the Latins, 

* See History of Greece, p. 68. t Pliny, xxxv. 5. 



22 HISTORY OF ROME. 

from whom he took the town of Apiolae ; and with the 
plunder, whose amount exceeded what might have been 
expected, he gave the people a spectacle of horse-racing and 
boxing superior to any they had yet seen. A war with the 
Sabines soon followed, and, before the Romans were aware 
of it, the Sabine army had crossed the Anio. The battle 
that ensued was bloody, but undecisive ; and Tarquinius, 
finding that his deficiency in cavalry had alone prevented 
the victory, prepared to add three new tribes, to be named 
from himself and his friends, to the tribes or equestrian cen- 
turies of Romulus. But the augur Attus Navius forbade to 
change without auspices what had been instituted v*^ith them. 
The king, annoyed, to put him to shame desired him to 
augur, if what he was then thinking on could be done. 
Attus, having observed the heavens, replied in the affirmative. 
" Then," cried the king, triumphantly, " I was thinking that 
you should cut a whetstone through with a razor." Attus 
took the razor and stone, and cut it through ; the king gave 
up his project, but he doubled the amount of the old centu- 
ries without interfering with the original names. 

The Sabines meantime remaining on the hither side of the 
Anio, Tarquinius had a large heap of timber which lay on 
the banks of the stream set fire to and cast into it, and it 
floated along and burned the wooden bridge behind them ; 
he then attacked and routed them with great slaughter, 
and their arras being carried along the stream into the Ti- 
ber gave the first tidings of the victory at Rome. Tar- 
quinius passed the Anio and received the submission of the 
town of Collatia, over which he set his nephew Egerius. 
He afterwards made war on the Latins, and reduced several 
of their towns. We are also told that all Etruria was foiiced 
to submit to his supremacy. 

Tarquinius, at peace and abounding in wealth, now de- 
voted his thoughts to the improvement of the city. As the 
valleys between the hills were mostly under water from the 
overflowing of the Tiber, he embanked that river, and built 
huge sewers to drain the swamps and pools it had formed. 
The ground thus gained between the Tarpeian and the 
Palatine hills he laid out as a place for markets and the 
meetings of the people; the space between the Palatine and 
the Aventine was made a, race-course, and named the Circus 
Maximus. Tarquinius also commenced building a wall of 
hewn stone around the city, and he levelled and enlarged 
by extensive substructions the area of one of the summits 



SERVIUS TULLIUS. 23 

of the Saturnian hill for a temple which he had vowed to 
Jupiter. 

The king had reigned thirty-eight years in glory, when 
his life was terminated by assassins hired by the sons of his 
predecessor. The occasion was as follows. When the Latin 
town of Corniculum was taken, one of the captives, named 
Ocrisia, was placed in the service of the queen. As she was 
one day, according to usage, placing cakes on the hearth 
to the household gods, an apparition of the fire-god ap- 
peared over the fire. She told the king and queen, and Tan- 
aquil had her instantly arrayed as a bride and shut up alone 
in the apartment. She became pregnant by the god, and 
in due season brought forth a son, who was named Servius 
Tullius. One time, the child fell asleep during the heat of 
the day in the porch of the palace, and suddenly, to the sur- 
prise of the beholders, his head was seen enveloped in flames, 
which played innocuously, and departed when he awoke. 
Tanaquil, who saw in this the favor of his divine sire, had 
him brought up with the greatest care. When he attained 
to manhood, he displayed the utmost valor in the field ; 
the king bestowed on him the hand of his daughter, and 
intrusted him with the exercise of the royal authority, and 
it was expected that he would appoint him his successor. 
The sons of Ancus had hitherto borne patiently their exclu- 
sion from the throne, expecting to obtain it on the death of 
Tarquinius, who was now eighty years old ; seeing, how- 
ever, the favor shown to Servius, they resolved to wait no 
longer, but to kill the king and seize the throne. They 
therefore engaged two ferocious peasants to accomplish the 
deed, and these ruffians proceeding to" the palace pretended 
to quarrel ; the noise they made attracted the attention of 
the royal servants, and as they mutually appealed to the 
king for justice, they were led before him. Here, as Tar- 
quinius was listening to the one, the other gave him a deadly 
wound with an axe on the head. The murderers fled, but 
were pursued and taken. The dying monarch was brought 
into the palace, which Tanaquil ordered to be shut ; and then 
telling Servius that now was his time to secure the succes- 
sion, went up to a window, whence she addressed the people, 
telling them that the king's wound was not fatal, that he 
would soon recover, and that meantime Servius was to ex- 
ercise the functions of royalty. The gate was then opened, 
and Servius issued forth with the royal insignia. He took 
his seat, and administered justice, in some cases at once, in 



24 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Others he feigned that he would consult the king. After 
some days the death of Tarquinius was made known, and 
without an interreign the royal dignity was conferred on 
Servius. The Marcii, having gained nothing but infamy 
by their crime, retired in despair to the town of Suessa 
Pometia. 

The reign of Servius was, like that of Numa, one of peace, 
and only distinguished by internal legislation. Like Numa, 
too, he was favored with the love of a deity. The goddess 
Fortuna loved him and used to visit him in secret; and 
when, one time at a later period, the temple which he had 
raised to her was burnt, the flames, mindful of his origin, 
spared the wooden statue of the king which stood in it. 

Servius, the poor man's friend, paid out of his royal treas- 
ure the debts of such as were reduced to poverty ; he re- 
deemed those whose labor was pledged for debt, and he 
assigned the people portions out of the conquered lands. 
He also divided all the people into classes, regulated by 
property, so that each person should contribute to the sup- 
port and defence of the state in proportion to the stake he 
had in it.* This able prince, moreover, brought about a 
federal union with the thirty Latin towns in which the su- 
premacy was accorded to Rome; and, as was usual in such 
cases, a common temple was built to Diana (the moon-god- 
dess) on the Aventine. The Sabines also joined in the 
worship at this temple. Among the cattle of a Sabine 
husbandman was an ox of prodigious size, and the sooth- 
sayers declared that the supreme power would be with that 
people, by one of whom this ox was sacrificed to Diana of 
the Aventine. The Sabine drove his beast to the temple 
on a proper day, and was preparing to sacrifice, when the 
Roman priest, who had heard the response, cried out, " What, 
with unwashed hands ! The Tiber runs down below there." 
The Sabine, anxious to perform the sacrifice duly, went down 
to the river, and the crafty Roman offered up his beast while 
he was away. The huge horns were nailed up in the ves- 
tibule, where they remained the- wonder of succeeding ages. 

Warned by the fate of his predecessor, Servius endeav- 
ored to disarm the resentment of those who might fancy 
they had a claim to the throne. The late monarch had left 
two sons,t Lucius and Aruns, and Servius gave these youths 

* This constitution will be developed in Chapter. V. 
i Those who saw the difficulty in the poetic narrative said grand 
sons. 



SERVIUS TULLIUS. ^ 

his two daughters in marriage. But the youths were differ- 
ent in temper, one being mild and gentle, the other proud 
and violent ; the king's daughters likewise were of opposite 
dispositions, and chance or the king's will had joined those 
whose tempers differed. The haughty Tullia soon despised 
her gentle mate Aruns, and placed her love on the haughty 
Lucius. An adulterous intercourse succeeded, which was 
speedily followed by the sudden deaths of those who stood 
in the way of their legal union, to which a reluctant con- 
sent was extorted from the king^ now far advanced in years. 

Urged on by his unprincipled wife, Tarquinius now openly 
aspired to the kingdom. A large portion of the Patricians, 
offended at the wise and beneficent laws of the king, readily 
entered into a conspiracy against him, and Tarquinius, in 
reliance on their support, at length ventured one day to 
enter the market surrounded by armed men, and placing 
himself on the royal seat in the senate-house, ordered the 
herald to call the senate to King Tarquinius. The senators 
came, some through fear, others already prepared for the 
event ; and he addressed them, setting forth his claims to the 
throne. Just then Servius arrived, and demanded why he 
had dared to take his seat ; the rebel made an insolent re- 
ply ; a shout was set up by their respective partisans. Tar- 
quinius, seeing that he must now dare the utmost or fail, 
seized the aged king by the waist and flung him down the 
stone steps. He then returned into the senate-house ; the 
king, whose adherents had fled, rose sorely bruised, and 
slowly moved toward home ; but at the foot of the Esquiline 
(on which he resided) he was overtaken and slain by those 
sent after him by the usurper. 

Tullia, regardless of female decorum, drove in her chariot 
to the senate-house, called her husband out, and was the 
first to salute him king. He prayed her to return home ; as 
she drove, she came to where the corpse of her father was 
lying ; the mules started, the driver paused in horror and 
looked his mistress in the face. " Why do you stop? " cried 
she. '* See you not the body of your father ? " replied the 
man ; she flung the footstool at his head, he lashed on the 
mules, and the wheels passed over the monarch's body, 
whose blood spirted over the garments of the parricide. 
Ever after the street was named the Wicked, (Vicus Scele- 
ratiis.) When, some time afterw^ards, Tullia ventured to 
enter the temple of Fortune, the statue of her father was 
3 D 



26 HISTORY OF ROME. 

seen to place its hands before its eyes, and cry, " Hide my 
face ! that I may not behold my impious daughter." * 

Thus, after a reign of forty-four years, perished this best 
of kings, and with him all just and moderate government at 
Home. 

L. Tarquinius, named the Proud, {Superbus,) resolved to 
rule by terror the empire he had acquired by crime. He 
deprived the people of all the privileges conferred on them 
by Servius ; he put to death or banished such of the sena- 
tors as he feared or disliked, and like the Greek tyrants, 
surrounded himself with a body-guard of mercenaries. He 
rarely called together the diminished senate. To strengthen 
himself by external alliances, he gave one of his daughters 
in marriage to Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum, the leading 
man among the Latins. 

As the head of the Latin nation, Tarquinius sum^moned 
a congress to the grove of Ferentina (the usual place of 
meeting) to deliberate on matters of common weal. The 
deputies met at dawn, and waited all the day in vain for 
the appearance of the Roman monarch. Turnus Herdonius 
of Aricia, one of them, then loudly inveighed against the in- 
solence and pride which this conduct denoted, and advised 
them to separate and return to their homes. In the evening, 
however, Tarquinius arrived, and excused his delay under 
the pretext of his having had to make up a quarrel between 
a father and a son. Turnus treated this as a flimsy excuse, 
and the council was put off till the next day. During the 
night Tarquinius, who was resolved to destroy Turnus, had 
his slave bribed to convey a great number of swords secretly 
into his lodging, and a little before day he summoned a 
meeting of the deputies. His delay the preceding day he 
declared had been most providential, for he had since dis- 
covered that Turnus had planned to kill both him and them, 
and thus become the ruler of Latium. He had, he under- 
stood, collected arms for that purpose, and he now prayed 
them to come and try if the intelligence was true. Their 
knowledge of Turnus' character induced them to give credit 
to the charge ; they awoke him from his sleep, the house was 
searched, the arms were found, Turnus was laid in chains 
and brought before the council ; the swords were produced, 
he was condemned untried, taken to the fount of Ferentina, 
cast in, a hurdle placed over him laden with stones, and 

** Ovid, Fasti, vi. 6]3. 



JL. TAR(iUlNlUS SUPERBUS. 27 

thus drowned. The league with Latium was then solemnly 
renewed, and Tarquinius declared head of the confederacy, 
which was also joined by the Hernicans ; and a common 
festival, to be annually held at the temple of Jupiter Latiaris 
on the Alban Mount, was instituted. 

The arras of the confederates were soon turned against 
their neiorhbors, and Suessa Pometia, a flourishinor town 
of the Volscians, was the first object of attack. The town 
was taken by storm, the inhabitants sold, the tithe of the 
booty reserved for building the temple of Jupiter, and the 
remainder distributed among the soldiers. 

The city of Gabii, which lay about twelve miles from 
Rome, relying on the strength of its walls, would not be 
included in the treaty of federation with Rome. It gave 
an asylum to the Roman exiles, and for some years the 
Romans and Gabines carried on a harassing warfare, wasting 
and plundering each other's lands. At length, treachery 
effected what force could not achieve. Sextus, the youngest 
son of the tyrant, in concert with his father, fled to Gabii to 
seek a refuge, as he alleged, from his father's cruelty, which 
menaced his life. The simple Gabines believed the lying 
tale ; they pitied and received him. Soon they admitted 
him to their councils ; at his impulsion they renewed the 
war, which had languished ; Sextus got a command ; fortune 
every where favored him ; he was at length made general ; 
the soldiers adored the chief who always led them to victory, 
and his authority in Gabii finally equalled that of Tarquinius 
at Rome. He now sent a trusty messenger to his father to 
ask him how he should act. Tarquinius received the mes- 
senger in his garden, and as he walked up and down he 
struck off the heads of the poppies with his staff, but made 
no reply. The messenger returned and told of the strange 
behavior of the king, but Sextus knew what it meant ; he 
accused some of the leading men to the people, others he 
caused to be assassinated, others he drove into exile; in 
fine, he deprived the Gabines of all their men of talent and 
wealth, and then delivered up the city, void of defence, to 
his father. 

Tarquinius now turned all his thoughts to the completion 
of the temple on the Saturnian hill. As. since the time of 
Tatius, it had been covered with the altars and chapels of 
various deities, it was requisite to obtain the consent of each 
for their removal by augury. All, save Terminus and Youth, 
readily gave it, whence it was inferred that Rome would 



28 ' HISTORY OF ROME. 

flourish in perpetual youth, and her boundaries never re- 
cede. The fresh-bleeding head [caput) of a man was alsc 
found as they were digging the foundation ; whence the tem- 
ple, and from it the hill, was named the Capitolium,* and 
it was announced that Rome would be the head of Italy. 
Artists came from Etruria, task-work was imposed on the 
people, and at length the united fanes of Jupiter, Juno and 
Minerva, crowned the summit of the Capitolium. 

One day a strange woman appeared before the king with 
nine books, which she offered to sell for 300 pieces of gold. 
Tarquinius declined the purchase : she went away, burned 
three of them, came back and demanded the same price for 
the remainder. She was laughed at ; she burned three more, 
and still her price was the same. The king, suspecting some 
mystery, consulted the augurs, who blamed him for not 
having purchased the whole, and advised him to hesitate no 
longer. He paid the money, the woman delivered the 
books and vanished. These books, which contained Sib- 
ylline oracles,t were placed in a stone chest in an under- 
ground cell in the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, under 
the custody of two men of noble birth, and were directed to 
be consulted in emergencies of the state. 

But prodigies sent by Heaven soon came to disturb the 
tyrant's repose. While a sacrifice was being offered one 
day in the palace, a serpent came out of the altar, put out 
the fire and seized the flesh that was on it.| Tarquinius, 
appalled at such an event, sent his two eldest sons, Titus 
and Aruns, to Greece to consult the Delphic oracle, then so 
renowned. The royal youths were accompanied by their 
cousin L. Junius, surnamed Brutus, [Fool;) for when the 
tyrant put the elder brother of the Junii to death for his 
wealth, Lucius, to save his life, had counterfeited folly ; eat- 
ing, in proof of it, wild figs and honey. § 

The Pythia, on hearing the prodigy, replied that the 
king would fall when a dog spake with a human voice. || 

* The Saturnian or Tarpeian hill had, on the end furthest from the 
river, two summits separated by a hollow. The one was the Arx or 
citadel; the other, being enlarged by suhstnictions or walls built round 
it and filled up within, so as to give an area of 800 feet in compass, 
was the site of the temple. 

t That is, of tlie prophetic women, named Sibyls by the Greeks. 
The Sibylline books of the Romans were in Greek. 

t Ov. Fasti, ii. 711. 

§ Macrobius, Sat. ii. 16. 

\\ Zonaras, ii. 11. 



TALE OF LUCRETIA. 29 

The Tarquinii then asked which of them should reign at 
Rome. ** He who first kisses his mother," was the response. 
They agreed to keep this a secret from Sextus, and to de- 
cide by lot between themselves. But Brutus, who had offered 
to the god his staff of cornel-wood, which he had secretly 
filled with gold emblematic of himself, divined the meaning 
of the oracle ; as they came down the hill he pretended to 
stumble and fall,, and as he lay he kissed the earth, the 
common mother of all. 

In the palace garden stood a stately plane-tree in 
which two eagles had built their nest. One day,, in the 
absence of the parent birds, vultures came, threw the 
eaglets out of the nest, and drove off the old birds on their 
return. The king also dreamed that two rams were brought 
to him at the altar, he chose the finer for sacrifice, the other 
then cast him down with its horns, and the sun turned back 
from east to west.* In vain was the tyrant warned to be- 
ware of the man who seemed stupid as a sheep ; fate would 
tread its path. 

Tarquinius had laid siege to Ardea, a city of the Rutu- 
lians built on a steep, insulated hill. As from its situation 
it could only be reduced by blockade, the Roman army lay 
in patient inactivity at its foot. The king's sons diverted 
their leisure by mutual banquets, at one of which, given by 
Sextus, they and their cousin Collatinus, son of Egerius of 
Collatia, fell into a dispute respecting the virtues of their 
wives. Collatinus, who warmly maintained the superiority of 
his Lucretia, proposed that they should mount their horses 
and go and take their wives by surprise. Warm with wine, 
the youths assented ; they rode to Rome, which they reached 
at nightfall, and found the royal ladies revelling at a ban- 
quet ; they thence sped to Collatia, and, though it was late 
in the night, Lucretia sat spinning among her maidens. The 
prize was yielded at once to her, and with cheerfulness and 
modesty she received and entertained her husband and his 
cousins. • 

Unhappy Lucretia ! thy simple modesty caused thy ruin. 
Sextus, inflamed by the sight of such virtue and beauty 
united, conceived an adulterous passion, and a few days 
afterwards he came, attended by a single slave, to Collatia. 
Lucretia entertained him as her husband's kinsman, and a 
chamber was assigned him for the night. He retired ; and 

* Attius in Cic. de Div. /. 22. 



30 HISTORY OF ROME. 

when all was still he rose, took his drawn sword, and sought 
the chamber of his hostess. He awoke her, told his love, 
prayed, besought, then menaced to slay her, and with her 
his slave, and to declare that he had caught and slain her 
in the base act of servile adultery. The dread of posthumous 
disgrace prevailed where that of death could not, and she 
yielded to his wishes. In the morning Sextus, elate with 
conquest, returned to the camp. Lucretia rose from the 
scene of her disgrace, and sent trusty messengers to Ardea 
and to Rome to summon her husband and her father Lucre- 
tius. X^e latter came, and with him P. Valerius ; Colla- 
tinus was accompanied by L. Junius Brutus, whom he met 
by chance on the way. They found her sitting mournful 
in her chamber ; she told the direful tale, she implored them 
to avenge her, she declared her resolve to die. They sought 
to console her, urging that she was stainless in thought, 
and therefore free from guilt ; but she drew a concealed 
knife, and, ere they were aware, she had buried it in her 
heart. The husband and father gave a loud cry of grief; 
but Brutus, bursting forth from the cloud of folly which 
had hitherto enveloped him, drew the reeking weapon from 
her heart and swore on it eternal enmity to Tarquinius and 
his race. He handed the knife to the others, and all, 
amazed at the change, took the same oath. Grief gave 
place to rage ; the body of Lucretia was brought out into 
the market ; Brutus, pointing to her wound, excited the 
spectators to vengeance ; the youth ranged themselves 
at his side, and leaving a sufficient number to guard the 
town he hastened at their head to Rome. By virtue of 
his office as Tribune of the Celeres, he called an assembly 
of the people ; he told his own story ; he told the more af- 
flicting tale of Lucretia's fate ; he dwelt on the crimes, the 
cruelty, and the oppression of the tyrant. The multitude 
took fire ; they declared royalty abolished, and Tarquinius 
and his family exiles. Leaving Lucretius to take charge 
of the city, Brutus then hastened with a select bodf of men 
to the camp at Ardea. Tarquinius meantime, hearing of 
what had occurred, was on his way to Rome ; Brutus 
avoided meeting him, and was received with acclamations 
by the troops ; the tyrant finding the gates of Rome closed 
against him, retired with his family to Caere. Sextus went 
to Gabii, which he esteemed his own ; but he was there 
slain by the relations of some of those whom he had caused 
to be put to death. 



CONSPIRACY AT ROME. S'% 

Thus after a duration of twenty-five years, ended the 
reign of L. Tarquinius, the last king of Rome, in the 244th 
year from the building of the city. The anniversary of 
it, under the name of King's-flight {Regifugiu??i,) was till 
remote times celebrated on the 24th of February in each 
year. 

A truce was made with Ardea, and the army led back to 
Rome. An assembly was then held, the city was purified by 
sacrifices, and the people all swore upon the victims never 
to readmit the Tarquinii, or to endure a king in Rome. Two 
annual magistrates, under the name of Consuls, were placed 
at the head of the state, and the just laws of Servius were 
restored. Brutus and Collatinus were appointed to be the 
first consuls. 

Tarquinius, meantime, had not resigned all hopes of recov- 
ering his power. The exiles of his party were numerous ; 
many in the city were in his favor, and if he could obtain 
the aid of some powerful state, he yet might enter Rome a 
conqueror. He therefore applied to the Tarquinians, as 
his family had originally come from their city. They re- 
ceived him favorably, and ambassadors were sent to Rome 
to demand his restoration, or at least the property there 
belonging to himself and his friends. The senate would 
not listen to the former proposal ; but they agreed to give up 
the movable property. The ambassadors tarried at Rome 
under the pretext of collecting the property and getting 
vehicles for its conveyance, but in reality to organize a plot 
in favor of the tyrant. They had brought letters to that 
effect from the exiles to their friends and relatives ; and a 
great number of the young nobility, who could ill bear the 
authority of law and the power given to the people, and 
who regretted the license of the days of the tyrant, readily 
entered into a conspiracy to restore him. Among these 
were the two Aquilii, the nephews of Collatinus, and the 
Vitellii, the nephews of Brutus, whose own two sons, Titus 
and Tiberius, were induced to engage in the foul conspiracy 
to undo the glorious work of their father. 

The ambassadors required from them letters to the tyrant 
sealed with their signets. They met for this purpose at 
the house of the Aquilii under pretext of a sacrifice. After 
the solemn banquet they ordered the slaves to retire, and 
then with closed doors composed and wrote the letters. 
But one of the slaves, named Vindicius, suspecting what 
they were about, remained outside and through a slit in the 



32 HISTORY OF ROME. 

door beheld all their proceedings. He sped away and gave 
information, and all the conspirators were seized in the 
fact. 

Early in the morning the consuls took their seats of jus- 
tice in public ; the conspirators were led before them ; Bru- 
tus, in right of his paternal authority, condemned his sons 
to death ; the lictors stripped and scourged them according 
to usage, the consul's features remained unmoved, and he 
calmly saw the axe descend and deprive his offspring of 
life. No mercy could be expected for the others; all bled 
in turn. Liberty, a gift from the treasury, and citizenship 
were the reward of the loyal slave. The rights of nations 
were respected in the ambassadors ; but the property of the 
tyrant was given flp to piilage to the people. A large field 
which he possessed outside of the city, by the Tiber, was 
consecrated to the god Mars. There was on it at this time 
a ripe prop of spelt : religion forbidding it to be used for 
food, it was cut and cast into the Tiber. As the river was 
then low, the corn stopped on the shallows, and from the 
addition of other floating matter it gradually formed an 
island before the city. 

The jealousy of the people now extended to the whole 
Tarquinian house, and even Collatinus had to yield to the 
remonstrances of his colleague and quit Rome. He re~ 
tired with all his property to Lavinium, where he ended 
his days. Valerius was chosen consul in his stead, and a 
decree was passed declaring the whole Tarquinian house 
exiles. 

Tarquinius, convinced that his return could only be ef- 
fected by force, addressed himself to the Veientines, whom 
by large promises he induced to arm in his cause. Their 
troops, united with those of the Tarquinians and the Roman 
exiles, entered the Roman territory on the Tuscan side of 
the Tiber ; the Romans advanced to meet them, Valerius 
commanding the foot, Brutus the horse. The enemy's 
horse was led by Tarquinius' son Aruns, who, recognizing 
the consul, spurred his horse against him. Brutus did not 
decline the combat ; rage stimulated both ; they thought not 
of defence ; the spear of each pierced his rival's shield and 
body, and both fell dead to the earth. A general engage- 
ment, first of the horse, then of the foot, ensued ; the Veien- 
tines, used to defeat, turned and fled ; the Tarquinians routed 
those opposed to them. Night ended the conflict ; neither 
side owned itself vanquished ; but at the dead hour of night 



DEATH OF BRUTUS. 33 

the voice of the wood-god Silvanus was heard to cry from 
the adjacent forest of Arsia that the Tuscans were beaten, 
as one more had fallen on their side. At dawn no enemy 
was to be seen ; the Romans counted the slain, and found 
11,300 Tuscans, 11,299 Romans on the field. Valerius 
collected the spoil and returned in triumph to Rome. Next 
day the obsequies of Brutus were performed ; the matrons 
of Rome mourned a year, as for a parent, for the avenger 
of violated chastity. In after-times his statute of bronze, 
bearing a drawn sword, stood on the Capitol in the midst 
of those of the seven kings.* 

Valerius delayed the election of a successor to Brutus ; he 
was moreover building himself a house of stone on the sum- 
mit of the Velia,t above the Forum, and a suspicion arose 
that he was aiming at the kingly power. When he heard 
of this, he stopped the building ; the people then gave him 
a piece of ground at the foot of the hill to build on,*and the 
privilege of having his doors to open back into the street. 
The honor of precedence at the public games was accorded 
to him and his posterity, as also was that of burying their 
dead within the walls. These honors were the reward of 
the public spirit of Valerius. His object in delaying the 
election had been that he should not be impeded by a col- 
league in the good measures he proposed. He convoked 
the curies, f before whom he lowered his fasces in acknowl- 
edgment that the consular power proceeded from them, § 
and proposed a law, outlawing any person who should usurp 
the regal power. He assembled the centuries, \\ and had 
the right of appeal from the consuls,^ which the patricians 
had to their peers in the curies, extended to the plebeians in 
their tribes, and, as an evidence of this right, directed that 
no axes should be borne in the fasces within the city. He 
then held the consular election ; Sp. Lucretius was chosen, 

* Plutarch, Brutus 1. See also Dion Cassius, xliii. 45. Ovid, Fasti, 
vi. 624. 

t The Velia was a ridge running from the Palatine to the Esquiline. 

X " Vocato ad concilium populo" Liv. ii. 7. For the meaning of 
populus, see below, Ch. v. 

§ Hence he was named Poplicola, i. e. Publicus. " The right un- 
derstanding of the word populus dissipates the fancy that Poplicola 
was the designation of a demagogue like Pericles, who courted the 
favor of the multitude." ' Niebuhr, i. p. 521. 

jl Cicero de Rep. ii. 31. 

11 The right of appeal for both only extended to a mile from the 
city ; the unlimited imperium began there. 

E 



3# 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



but he dying shortly after, M. Horatius was elected. As 
the temple of Jupiter was now finished, the lot was to decide 
which consul should dedicate it : fortune favored Horatius 
Valerius went to war against the Veientines, but his kinsmen, 
vexed that such an honor should fall to Horatius, sought to 
impede the ceremony. He had laid hold of the door-post, 
according to usage, and was pronouncing the prayer, when 
one came crying, " Thy son is dead, thou canst not dedicate 
it;" one word of lamentation had broken the ceremony. 
" Let the corpse be brought forth," replied he calmly, and 
concluded the prayer and the dedication. 

The banished tyrant now applied to Lars Porsenna, lord 
of Clusium, the most powerful prince of Etruria. The 
Tuscan, fired at the idea of extending his sway beyond the 
Tiber, set his troops in motion. He suddenly appeared at 
the Janiculan ; those who guarded it fled over the Sublician 
bridge into the city ; the Tuscans pursued; they reached the 
bridge ; but Horatius Codes, who had the charge of guard- 
ing it, and two other heroes, Sp. Larcius and T. Herminius, 
there met and withstood them. At the command of Hora- 
tius those behind broke down the bridge ; he forced his two 
brave mates to retire, the Tuscans raised a shout and sent 
a shower of darts, which he received on his shield ; they 
rushed on to force the passage, a loud crash and a shout 
behind told that the bridge was broken; Horatius, calling 
on Father Tiber to receive his soldier, plunged into the 
stream, armed as he was ; in vain the Tuscans showered 
their darts ; he reached the further side in safety. Though 
suffering at the time from famine, the citizens gave him each 
a portion of his corn, and the republic afterwards bestowed 
on him as much land as he could plough round in a day, 
and erected his statute in the Comitium. 

Porsenna encamped along the Tiber ; the famine pressed 
heavily at Rome : then a noble youth, named C. Mucins, 
conceived the thought of delivering his country. He went 
to the senate, and craved permission to pass over to the 
Tuscan camp. Leave was granted ; he concealed a dagger 
beneath his garments, and crossed the Tiber. He entered 
a crowd collected around the king, who was issuing pay to 
his troops ; at the side of Porsenna, habited nearly as the 
king, sat his secretary busily engaged. Mucins, fearing to 
inquire which was Porsenna, struck his weapon into the 
secretary, whom he took for the king. He turned, and 
tried to force his way through the throng ; but he was seized 



WAR WITH PORSENNA. 



%5 



and dragged before Porsenna's judgment-seat. He told his 
name and country boldly, adding, that many noble youths 
were prepared to act as he had done. Porsenna, terrified, 
threatened to burn him alive if he did not make an ample 
confession. There was a fire on an altar close by ; Mucius 
thrust his right hand into it, and held it there with an un- 
moved countenance. The king in amaze leaped from his 
seat, had hiai removed from the altar, and gave him his life 
and liberty. Mucius then told him that he was one of three 
hundred youths who had sworn his death ; the lot had first 
fallen on him, but that each would take his turn. He re- 
turned to Rome, and he was afterwards rewarded by a grant 
of land, similar to that of Horatius Codes, He and his 
posterity bore the name of Scoevola, {^Left-handed,) to com- 
memorate his daring deed. 

Ambassadors from Porsenna came soon after to propose a 
peace. The interests of Tarquinius were neglected by his 
ally, who only required that the Romans should give the 
Veientines back their lands. These terms were accepted, 
and ten patrician youths, and as many maidens, were sent 
as hostages into the Tuscan camp. But Clcelia, one of the 
maidens, urged her companions to attempt escape ; and she 
and they, eluding their guards, plunged into the Tiber and 
swam across. Porsenna sent to demand their restoration : 
the senate sent them back, and the admiring monarch gave 
Clcelia leave to select such of the hostages of the other sex 
as she wished, and presented her with a horse anci trappings; 
and the Romans afterwards raised an equestrian statue in 
her honor. When Porsenna was departing, he presented 
the Romans with his well-stored camp on the Janiculan. 
The senate in return sent him an ivory throne, a sceptre and 
crown of gold, and a triumphal robe, such as their kings 
were wont to wear. 

Some time after Porsenna sent his son Aruns with an 
army against Aricia, one of the chief towns of *Latiura. 
The Aricines were aided by the other Latins and by the 
Greeks of Cumse in Campania : the Tuscans were defeated, 
and their general slain. The fugitives met with such kind 
treatment at Rome, that many of them remained there, and 
built the Tuscan Street, ( Vicus Tuscus ;) and Porsenna, not 
to be outdone in generosity, gave back the hostages and the 
lands beyond the Tiber, 

Tarquinius had finally taken refilge with his son-in-law at 
Tusculum, and he at length succeeded in inducing the Latin 



36 HISTORY OF ROME. 

federation to arm in his cause. As the two nations had long 
been closely connected, a year's truce was agreed on to ar- 
range all private affairs ; and permission was given to the 
women of each people, who had married into the other, to 
return to their friends. All the Roman women came to 
Rome, and but two of the Latins departed from it. 

The shores of the Lake Regillus, in the lands of Tuscu- 
lum, witnessed the last effort in the cause of the Tarquinii. 
The Romans were commanded by the dictator, A. Postu- 
mius, and the master of the horse,* T. ^butius ; the Latins 
were led by Octavius Mamilius. King Tarquinius, regard- 
less of his advanced age, headed the Roman exiles; and as 
soon as he beheld the dictator, he spurred his horse against 
him, but a wound in the side from the spear of Postumius 
forced him to retire. On the other wing, JEbutius ran 
against Mamilius ; the former had an arm broken ; the Latin 
was struck in the breast, but, uninjured by the blow, he 
brought up the corps of exiles, and the Romans began to 
give way. M. Valerius, the brother of Popjicola, ran at the 
younger Tarquinius; the prince drew back, Valerius rushed 
among the exiles, and fell pierced by a spear ; the two sons 
of Poplicola perished in the attempt to recover his body. 
The dictator now falls on the exiles, and routs them ; Ma- 
milius brings troops to their aid ; he is met and slain by 
T. Herminius, who himself receives a mortal wound as he is 
stripping the body of the slain. The dictator flies to the 
horse, and implores them to dismount and restore the battle; 
they obey ; fired by their example, the foot charge once 
more ; the Latins turn and fly ; the Roman horse remount 
and pursue, and the Latin camp is taken. During the 
battle, the dictator vowed a temple to Castor and Pollux. 
Two youths of great size were seen mounted on white 
horses in the van of the fight, and ere the pursuit was over, 
they appeared at Rame, covered with blood and dirt, washed 
themselves and their arms at the fount of Juturna, by the 
temple of Vesta, and having announced the victory, dis- 
appeared. After-ages beheld on a basaltic rock, by the Lake 
Regillus, the print of a horse's hoof t 

Tarquinius fled to Cumae, whose tyrant Aristodemus gave 
him a friendly reception. He died in that town, and with 
him expired all hopes of reestablishing royalty at Rome. 

* These offices will be explained in the sequel. 
t Cicero de Nat. Deor. iii. 5. 



THE REGAL PERIOD OF ROME. 



%t| 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE REGAL PERIOD OF ROME, ACCORDING TO THE VIEWS OP 

NIEBUHR. 

Such are the earlier events of the history of Rome, as 
they were sung in the poetic Annals of Ennius, and related 
by Fabius Pictor, the father of Roman history. That they 
are mythic and seraimythic must be at once discerned by 
every one who is acquainted with the character of early 
home-sprung history ; but we are not thereby entitled to 
view them with contempt, and fling them away as useless. 
They have been closely interwoven into the institutions and 
literature of the state, and therefore must be known, and it is 
only by means of them that the real history can be divined; 
nor should the delight which they afford the imagination, 
and the exercise which they furnish for the powers of the 
mind in general be ^overlooked. We therefore make no 
apology for having lingered among them. 

Nearly a century ago, this character of the early Roman 
history was discerned by Beaufort, who, however, carried his 
scepticism somewhat too far. The fullest and most satisfac- 
tory examination of it was reserved for our own days; and 
the learning, the labors, and the sagacity of Niebuhr have 
altered the whole face of the early Roman story. We will 
now briefly' give his views of the portion of the history 
above narrated.* 

The war of Troy is so completely mythic, that we cannot 
with safety regard any portion of it as strictly historical. 
The voyage of ^Eneas to Latium is therefore entitled to 
little more credit than the tale of his divine birth ; yet, in 
the opinion of Niebuhr, it is no Grecian invention, but a 
domestic Roman tradition. It is, he thinks, indebted for 
its origin to the circumstance of the original population of 
both .Troy and Latium being Pelasgian. As the religion of 
the whole of this race was the same, and the sacred isle of 
Samothrace a place of common pilgrimage, those who met 
there, such, for example, as the Lavinians of Latium and 
the Gergethians of Mount Ida, may have easily accounted 



* In the text of this and the next chapter we confine ourselves to 
Niebuhr's views. Our own remarks and those of others will be placed 
in the notes. 

4 



3# 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



for iheir similarity of faith and institutions, by supposing 
the more distant ones to be colonies from Asia ; and the 
destruction of Troy and dispersion of its inhabitants offered 
a ready derivation of the colonies. It was, then, no diffi- 
cult matter to make an ignorant people, like the early 
Romans, believe in an origin thus calculated to do them 
honor. 

The succession of Alban kings * from Iiilus to Numitor 
is a pure fiction, intended to fill up the space which the 
Greek chronology gave between the fall of Troy and the 
building of Rome. Alba stood at the head of thirty towns, 
[Populi Albenses,) and was in union with the confederation 
of the thirty Latin towns. She had the supremacy, and 
all shared in the flesh of a victim, annually slain on the 
Alban mount. Lavinium was founded by settlers sent 
from the thirty Alban and thirty Latin towns, (ten from 
each,) and, like the Panionion, it was so named as being the 
seat of congress of the Latins, who were also called La- 
vines.t 

The Siculans, Tyrrhenians, Aborigines, or however the 
early Pelasgian inhabitants of Latium may have been named, 
dwelt in villages on eminences which might be easily de- 
fended. Thus beyond the Tiber there was Vaticum, or 
Vatica,! and another, whose name is unknown, stood on 
the summit of the Janiculan. On the Palatine was a town 
named Roma, and on the Caelian another, which we have 
reason to think was named Lucer or Lucerum ; and further 
down the river § probably another called Remuria ; while on 
the duirinal and Tarpeian above Roma, being separated by 
a swamp and marsh from the Palatine, was another town 
named Quirium. This last belonged to the Sabines, who 
had extended themselves thus far along the Tiber. Roma 
was probably one of the towns that acknowledged the su- 
premacy of Alba, and warfare of course was frequent be- 
tween it and duirium, and the former would appear to 



* The names of these kings in Livy are, Silviiis, iEncas, Latinus, 
Alba, Atys, Capys, Capetiis, Tiberinus, Agrippa, Romulus, Aven- 
tinus, Procas, Numitor, and Amulius. The lists in Dionysius and 
Ovid (Met. xiv. 609 : Fasti, iv. 41) differ slightly from this. 

t Turnus, Latinus, and Lavinia are nothing but personifications of 
Tyrrhenians, Latins, and Lavines. 

t For there vi'as an ager Vaticanus, and, as numerous examples 
show, this infers a town. 

§ Not on the Aventine, for then Roma could have had nq territorv 



THE REGAL PERIOD OF ROME. 39 

have at length become subject to the latter. The tale of 
the rape of the Sabine maidens,* and the consequent war, 
may represent how at one time there had been no right of 
intermarriage (connubium) between the two towns, and how 
the subject one, by force of arms, raised itself to an equality 
in civil rights, and even acquired the preponderance. When 
the two were united, they built the double Janus on the 
road leading from the Q,.uirinal to the Palatine, with a door 
facing each. It was open in time of war for mutual suc- 
cor, shut in time of peace to prevent quarrels, or in proof 
of the towns beincr distinct, thouo;h united. 

For some time each town had its own king, senate, 
and popular assembly, and they used to meet on occasions 
of common interest on the Comitium, in the valley between 
the two towns. At length, as the two peoples coalesced 
more and more, and the danger from Etruria or Alba became 
more pressing, they agreed to have but one senate, one 
assembly, and one king, to be chosen alternately by one 
people out of the other. On all solemn occasions the two 
combined peoples were now styled Populus Romdnus et 
Quii'ites.f 

In early antiquity, almost every state was divided into 
tribes, resulting from conquest or from difference of origin. 
We might therefore expect to find this the case in the 
present instance ; and accordingly we learn that the Ro- 
mans formed a tribe named Ramnes, and the Sabines one 
named Titienses. But we meet a third, the Luceres, whose 
oriorin it is much more difficult to ascertain. Another form 
of the name, however, Lucertes, leads to the supposition of 
their being the inhabitants of a town named Lucer or Lu- 
cerum, which is to be soCight on the Caslian, which be- 
longed to Roma in the time of Romulus, that is, before its 
union with Q,uirium ; for it was here that Tullus Hostilius 
placed the Albans, and a branch of the Roman people is 

* In the more ancient form of the legend there are but thirty 
maidens, who are, therefore, nothing but personifications of the names 
of the Curies. 

t Or, after the old Roman manner, Populus Romanus Quirites, 
which was afterwards corrupted to Populus Romanus Quiritium: see 
above, p. 4. The fixedness of the Roman character showed itself even 
in the retention of old names and forms ; a name was never let go out 
of use so long as an object to apply it to could be found. Thus, when 
the distinction between the two original component parts of the 
Roman people had ceased, the term Quirites v/as retained, and applied 
to the Plebs ! 



40 HISTORY OF ROME. 

assigned to Tullus, as the Ramnes and Titienses are to Romu- 
lus and Numa, and the Plebs to Ancus, and none remains 
for him but the Luceres. These were of Latin origin, and 
were subject to the Romans. They long continued inferior 
to the other two, and were not admitted to the deliberations 
on the Comitium. 

The whole legend of Romulus and Remus is purely my- 
thic. When Rome became a state of some importance, its 
people naturally looked back and so'ught to trace its origin. 
It is probable that at this time they had some knowledge 
of Grecian literature ; and as the Greeks had adopted the 
practice of deriving the names in their topography from 
those of supposed kings and princes, the Romans inferred 
that their city must have been founded by a Romus or Rom- 
ulus.*" If, as is above hinted, there was a town named 
Remuria in the neighborhood, whose people were of the 
same race as themselves, and had been sometimes at peace, 
sometimes at war with them, and had finally been overcome, 
they might have inferred that Remus, its founder, had been 
the twin-brother of Romulus, and was slain by him in a fit 
of anger. The notion of their city having been founded by 
twins would o-ather strenMh from the circumstance of their 
state having all along developed itself in a double form. 
That the legend grew up on the spot is proved by the wolf's 
den, the Ruminal fig-tree, and the other local circumstances. 
Gradually, as is always the case, the story received various 
additions, and the legends of other countries were perhaps 
transferred to it, and it thus assumed the form in which it 
has been transmitted to us.t 



* One acquainted with mythology will not be easily led to believe 
that, in remote antiquity, countries and towns were named from per- 
sons. The Greek logographers gave vogue to this notion, of which 
no trace appears in Homer or Hesiod ; but the first town really named 
after a man was Philippi, after Philip of Macedonia. (See History 
of Greece, p. 381.) 

t The tale of the exposure of the twins, and their preservation, re- 
minds us at once of the legend of Cyrus, and of those of Asclepios, 
Paris, and others in Grecian mythology. It more closely resembles 
the Iberian legend of Habis, (Justin, xliv.) which last is extremely 
similar to that of Orson in the romance. It is remarkable that many 
names in the early Roman legends seem to be of Greek origin. Thus 
we have Evander, (Good-man,) Cacus, [Bad,) Amulius, {Cunnings 
aiiivlog,) Numitor and Nnma, {Lawful, ruuoc.) It does not, how 
ever, hence follow that the legendary history of Rome was the inven 
tion of the Greeks ; the Romans themselves may have had a fondness, 
even in the early ages, for using Greek names. 



THE REGAL, PERIOD OF ROME. 41 

Numa, like Romulus, is an ideal personage, the symbol 
of the early religious institutions of the state. As these 
were chiefly Sabine, he was made to be of that nation, but 
in the original legend he must have been a native of Q,ui- 
rium, not of Cures. 

The purely mythic portion of Roman story terminates 
with Numa. The dawn of reality begins to glimmer with 
the reign of Tullus Hostilius. That Alba was destroyed, 
and that a portion of its population migrated to Rome, are 
historic facts ; but the probability is, that the Romans and 
Latins in conjunction took Alba and divided its territory 
and people ; for it was the Italian law of nations that the 
lands of the vanquished became the property of the con- 
queror, and we find the territory about Alba belonging to 
the Latins, not to the Romans. Or Alba may have been 
destroyed by the Latins alone, and its people have sought 
refuge at Rome. 

The reign of Ancus offers none of the features of poetry ; 
the events which it contains are all historical, though they 
may not all belong to that time. 

With Tarquinius Priscus the poetic history reappears. 
The Corinthian, and even the Etruscan, origin of this prince 
is apparently mere fiction ; while his surname of Priscus, 
Caia Caecilia the name of his wife in an old legend, and 
the fact of there being a Tarquinian house at Rome, testify 
strongly for his Alban, that is, Latin origin. For, as has 
been shown above,* the Priscans were a people united with 
the Latins, like the duirites with the Romans ; and as the 
names Auruncus, Siculus, and others, affixed to those of per- 
sons in the early ages of Rome, denote from what people 
they sprang, that of Priscus could only have been attached 
to a person of Priscan origin. t Moreover as the Servilii, 
with whom Priscus was a surname, were one of the Alban 
houses on the Ceelian, and therefore belonged to the Lu- 
ceres, it seems to follow that the Tarquinii also belonged 
to this tribe, and of this sufficient proofs appear. Caia 
CsBcilia's name, for instance, refers us to Praeneste, said to 
have been built by Caeculus the Eponymus, or heroic founder 
of her house. If, moreover, Tarquinius was of Alban 

* See p. 4. 

t To us it appears more probable that Priscus and Superhus were 
first used in after- times, and after the former had gotten the significa- 
tion o? old, to distinguish the Tarquinii. If Priscus was a cognomen^ 
at would have adhered to the family. 

4 * ■' p 



42 HISTORY OF ROME. 

extraction, the worship of the Greek gods at the Roman 
games, said to have been introduced by him, and so inex- 
plicable on the theory of his being an Etruscan, becomes 
easy of solution ; for the Albans, though mixed with Pris- 
cans, were mainly Tyrrhenians, and the religion of Rome 
had been hitherto chiefly Sabine. 

The poetic legend of Servius Tullius is utterly at variance 
with the following passage in a speech of the Emperor 
Claudius, who was well acquainted with Etruscan litera- 
ture.* " According to our annals," says he, " Servius Tul- 
lius was the son of the captive Ocrisia ; if we follow the 
Tuscans, he was the faithful follower of Cseles Vivenna, 
and shared in all his fortunes. At last, being overpowered 
through a variety of disasters, he quitted Etruria with the 
remains of the army that had served under Cseles, went to 
Rome, and occupied the Cgelian hill, calling it so after his 
former commander. He exchanged his Tuscan name Mas- 
tarna for a Roman one, obtained the kingly power, and 
wielded it to the great good of the state." Still the truth 
of this statement is not to be at once acquiesced in. Clau- 
dius was a man of no judgment; Etruscan annals contin- 
ued to be written down at least to the time of Sulla, 
when Etruria lost her independence; each annalist, without 
having any new sources of knowledge, expanded and en- 
larged the accounts of his predecessors ; there may have 
been an old tale of a chief named Mastarna retiring to and 
settling at Rome, and some annalist may have chosen to 
assert that he was Servius Tullius. It moreover does not 
follow that this account gained general credence even in 
Etruria. It is to be remarked, that among the Luceres 
there was a house of the Tullii, which would seem to m^ke 
Servius, like Tarquinius, one of them. t 

" The legends of Tarquinius and Servius, however," says 
Niebuhr, " clearly imply that there was a time when Rome 
received Tuscan institutions from a prince of Etruria, and 
was the great and splendid capital of a powerful Etruscan 



* It was on two brazen tables, found at Lyons in the 16th century. 

t There is something very strange in a leader of mercenary troops, 
like the Charidemuses of Greece, the Sforzas and Braccios of modern 
Italy, being the author of a wise and beneficent system of legislation, 
such as that of Servius Tullius. Is there any other instance of the 
total rejection of a foreign, and the assumption of a Roman name, in 
the early ages ? The change of Attus Clausus to Appius Claudius, 
even if real, is of quite a different kind. 



THE REGAL PERIOD OF ROME. 43 

State." Perhaps Veii, or one of the adjoining Tuscan states, 
conquered Rome; perhaps Cseles or Mastarna, or some 
other Tuscan leader, got the government into his hands ; * 
possibly it may have been the transient dominion of Por- 
senna, presently to be noticed,! 

The tragic fate of Servius and the crimes of Tullia are, 
perhaps, purely imaginary events; this much, however, is' 
certain that the noble system of legislation which bears his 
name was rendered abortive by a counter-revolution ; wheth- 
er it was attended with bloodshed and atrocities or not, 
is a matter of little importance. 

The whole poetic tale of th§ last Tarquinius is full of 
inconsistencies and contradictions. Thus Brutus, we are 
told, was of the same age with the king's sons, and was re- 
garded as an idiot. We may therefore suppose him not to 
have been more than five-and-twenty at the time of the rev- 
olution, yet he had grown-up sons at that time, and 
though a natural, was invested with one of the highest of- 
fices in the state, the tribunate of the Celeres, and could 
therefore convene assemblies and exercise sacerdotal func- 
tions ! His name probably gave occasion to the tale of his 
idiotcy, which tale knew nothing of his office, and the an- 
nalists, as usual, heedlessly combined the two accounts. 

The narrative of the taking of Gabii is evidently made 
up from two stories in Herodotus,! and is quite irrecon- 

* Sforza, from a leader of mercenaries, became duke of Milan by 
marrying the daughter of the last of the Visconti. 

t Niebuhr is certainly perplexed about the Tuscan dominion at 
Rome, especially as he rejects the Tuscan origin of the Tarquinii. 
Mailer (i. 118 — 123) thinks that at a time when the city of Tarquinii 
had extended her supremacy over all Etruria, she also ruled over 
Rome and a part of Latium. Hence he explains the walls, sewers, 
Capitoline temple, built on the Tuscan scale of magnitude, and the 
Grecian games, &c., for Tarquinii was intimately connected with 
Corinth. Mastarna, at the head of an army from Volsinii, the enemy 
of Tarquinii, conquered Rome, and gave it a new constitution ; but hi^ 
government was overthrown by the Tarquinians, and finally Lars Por- 
senna of Clusium put an end to the dominion of Tarquinii, conquering 
Rome among other places belonging to her. This writer, therefore, 
supposes the Tuscan dominion at Rome to have lasted a century. 
After all, we may ask, is there any absolute necessity for supposing it 
at all ? 

t That of Zopyrus, (iii. 154,) and the counsel given to Periander by 
Thrasybulus, (v. 92.) A Spanish abbot gave the same counsel to 
Ramirez king of Arragon, (Mariana, x. 16,) and Pope John VIII. gave 
it to Charles the Bald, of France, and Theodoric, count of Holland. 
(Scriverius Batavia Vetus.) The pope and abbot had no doubt read 
Livy. 



44 HISTORY OF ROME. 

cilable with the fact of the treaty with that town which ex- 
isted even in the time of Augustus, written on a bull's-hide 
stretched on a shield. In like manner, the war with Ardea 
must be a baseless fiction ; for, as will appear, it was at 
the lime of the expulsion a Latin town subject to Rome. 
The tale of Lucretia may or may not be a fiction ; but the 
oath of the four Romans is plainly symbolical of the union 
between the three Patrician tribes and the Plebs against the 
tyran. ; Lucretius being a Ramnes, Valerius a Titiensis, 
CoUatinus a Lucer, and Brutus a Plebeian.* The consulate 
of CoUatinus, a Tarquinius, looks like a compromise with 
the powerful house to which he belonged, allowing that one 
of them, to be chosen by the people, should share in the 
supreme power : but the whole house was banished shortly 
afterwards.! 

Of the war with Porsenna, not a single incident can be 
regarded as a portion of real history, Porsenna himself, was 
a mythic hero of Etruria, probably belonging to the ante- 
historic times, possibly connected in the Roman tradition 
with the war in which Rome fell before the Tuscan arms. 
For Rome actually had to surrender to a Tuscan power, to 
give back all the lands beyond the Tiber, and her citizens 
were prohibited the use of iron except for agricultural pur- 
poses.t But when the Tuscans were defeated before Aricia, 
the Romans rose and recovered their independence, but not 
the ced"ed lands. Then it may have been that property be- 
longing to the Tuscan lord in the city was sold by auction, 
which may have given rise to the symbolic custom of selling 
the goods of King Porsenna. 

The battle of the Regillus is thoroughly Homeric, with 
its single combats of heroes, and gods sharing openly in it. 
It closes the Lai/ of the Tarquins;^ the whole generation 
who had been warring with each other since the crime of 
Sextus 11 perish in it; " the manes of Lucretia are appeased, 
and the men of the heroic age depart out of the world, be- 



* The Junii were always a plebeian house. Niebuhr (iii. 41, Ger- 
man) would seem to have regarded Brutus as tRe tribune of the ple- 
beian knights. 

t The story of the slave Vindicius is a fiction, to give a historical 
origin to the custom of emancipating slaves by tbe Vindicta. 

X Tacitus, Hist. iii. 72. Pliny, H. N. xxxiv. 39. 

§ So Niebuhr names it after the Kihelungen Lied. i. e. Lay of the 
Nibelungs, a celebrated German po^sm. 

II According to one account Sextus was killed in this battle. 



THE JROxMAN CONSTITUTION. 45 



fore injustice begins to domineer, and gives birth to insur- 
rection in the state which they had delivered." 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION 
ACCORDING TO NIEBUHR. 

In the preceding chapter w^e have given a sketch of 
Niebuhr's views of the history of Rome in the regal period. 
We now proceed to give some of his ideas on the origin and 
development of the constitution during the same time. 

No institution in ancient times was more general than 
that of the division of a people into tribes.* These were 
either genealogical or local ; the former were the more an- 
cient kind, and mostly arose from a difference of origin ante- 
cedent to their political union. These tribes were divided 
into a certain number of Houses, [Gentes,) each of which 
again was composed of a greater or lesser number of Fami- 
lies, {FamilicB.) The territory of the state was divided 
among the tribes, and thus the genealogic tribes must have 
been local ones also at the time of their formation : but this 
local position was not their bond of union. 

To apply this principle to Rome. When Roma and Q,ui- 
rium united, their inhabitants, under the name of Ramnes 
and Titienses, formed two tribes, equal in all respects, save 
that the former had the precedence in rank ; the third tribe 
(for there must have been three)t was the Luceres, who, as 
previously subordinate to the Romans, were not yet placed 
on an equality with the former two. This inferiority of the 
Luceres is proved by the circumstance of the original number 
of the Vestals, the Pontiffs, the Flamens, and the Augurs 



* For both Sparta and Athens see History of Greece, Part I. c. v. 
and vii. 

t The word trihus, equivalent to the Greek phyle, evidently comes 
from tres, and, like the Attic rc^nrvg, indicated the original number of 
the tribes of Rome. In like manner century orio-inally indicated 100 
{centum) houses or individuals. They both became in the course of 
time mere terms of division, and we read of 20, 21, 30, 35 tribes, and 
centuries of even 30 persons. 



46 HISTORY OF ROME. 

being four, two for each of the superior tribes, and by other 
similar divisions in the state. Hence the members of the 
first two tribes were called those of the Greater Houses, 
(Majorum Gentium,) — those of the latter, of the Lesser 
Houses, (Minorum Gentium.)^ 

Each tribe was divided into ten Curies, (CuricB,) and each 
Cury contained ten Houses, (Gentes.) Each tribe was pre- 
sided over by its Tribune ( Trihunus) who was its leader in 
the field, its priest and magistrate at home. Each Cury had 
in like manner its Curion, {Curio,) whose title in the field 
was Centurion, as he commanded a hundred {centum) men 
in the original Roman army. 

The members of a house, though bearing the same name, 
are not to be regarded as kinsmen. t Their union was 
solely a political one ; it was kept up by common sacred 
rites, at stated times and places, to the expense of which 
all its members contributed. The Gentiles (i. e. the mem- 
bers of the house or gens) were bound to aid one another 
in paying fines, ransoms, etc. ; and if a man died without 
kin and intestate, his property went to his Gentiles. These 
members of the houses of the three tribes formed the 
burghers or original citizens of Rome. Their common 
names seems to have been Celeres : \ they were also called 
Patres, Patroni and Patricians, from the following cause. 

The states of antiquity were extremely jealous of their 
civic rights, and slow to communicate them to strangers; 
there moreover was not in them that equal law for the cit- 
izen and the stranger, to which loe are accustomed. When 
therefore for the sake of trade, or from some other cause, 
a man wished to settle in a town which was at amity or in 
a federal relation with his native place, he was obliged to 
choose some citizen of his new abode as his legal protector 
and guardian. In Greece a sojourner of this kind was 
named a Metcec, at Rome he was called a Client ; the me- 
tcec relation however might be dissolved at will, that of 
clientship descended to the posterity of the first client. 
The relative term to client was patron, with which Pater 

* The equestrian centuries of Tarquinius, or the Conscripti of Brutus, 
were thought by some to be the Lesser Houses. 

t Thus the Lentuli and the Scipiones were both of the house of 
the Cornehi, but they were never regarded as kinsmen. 

+ Celer seems to be akin to the Greek yJXfjc, a race-horse or riding- 
horse. The Roman Celeres or Patricians answered to the Inmig or 
iTcrto^orai of the Greeks. 



THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 4^ 

(Father) and Patricius (homo) may be regarded as synony- 
mous, and denoting the paternal care which a Roman 
burgher exercised over his children, servants, and clients. 

If the client did not exercise a trade, keep a shop, or so 
forth, the patron usually granted him on his estate, two 
jugers of arable land, with space to build a cottage on, 
which he held as tenant at will. The patron was bound to 
relieve his client when in distress, to expound to him the 
law, both civil and religious, and to appear for him in courts 
of justice.* The client on his side was to be obedient to his 
patron, to aid him in paying fines to the state, and in bear- 
ing public burdens, to contribute to ransom him if made a 
prisoner, and to help to make up the marriage-portion of his 
daughters. Altogether this relation has a striking similar- 
ity to that of lord and vassal in the feudal times, which in 
all probability was derived from it. 

The Patricians or burghers formed the general assembly 
or Populus.f They met on the place called the Comitium, 
and they voted by curies, whence the assembly was named 
Comitia Curidta. The votes taken in the curies were those 
of the houses, not of individuals. 

No state in antiquity was without its senate ; that of 
Rome was composed of representatives, one for each of the 
houses, and consequently contained at first 100, then 200, 
and finally 300 members. It was divided into decuries; 
corresponding to the number of the curies, and therefore 
gradually increasing in number from ten to tuirty. The 
Raranes had the superiority in the senate also; ten persons, 
one from each of their decuries, were named the Ten First 
{Decern primi) of the senate. On the death of a king, these 
ten formed a board, each member of which enjoyed for five 

"* Hence lawyers still call those who employ them their clients. 

t The folio wing passages of Livy prove that the populus was distinct 
from the plebs. " A plebe, consensu joopuli, consulibus negotium 
mandatur," iv. 51. " Non populi sed plebis magistratum," ii. 56. 
" PraBtor is qui populo plebique jus dabit suqimum," xxv. 12. In 
Cicero's Epistles we meet the following superscriptions, (Ad Divers, x. 

8 : ) PlANCUS imp. cons. DES. S. D. COSS. PR. TRIE. PLEB. SEN. POP. 

PL. Q,. R., and (Id. x. 35) Lepidus imp. iter. pont. max. s. d. senat. 
POP. PL. Q. r. Fabius and Dion Cassius, as appears from Diodorus 
and Zonaras, used drjuog for populus, nXijdog i'or plebs. See Niebuhr, i. 
417, and ii. 1G8, note. "We think that these passages are quite deinon- 
strative on the subject. It is impossible to explain them on the thieory 
of the populus being the whole, the plebs a part of the people. See 
also Cic. Muren. 1. Verres, v. 14. Ad. Divers, viii. 8. Dion. lii. 20., 
liii. 21., Iv. 34. 



48 HISTORY OF ROME^ 

days, as Interrex, {Betiveen-king ,) the royal power and dig- 
nity. If at the end of fifty days no king was elected, the 
rotation of Interrexes commenced anew. 

When the King (Rex) was to be elected, the senate agreed 
among themselves on the person whom the Interrex should 
propose to the curies. If they accepted him, the sanction 
of the gods was sought by augury, and the signs being fa- 
vorable, the new king had himself to propose a law for 
investing him with the fall regal power {imperimn) to the 
curies who might then if they pleased annul their former 
decision.* It was probably thought, that in a matter of 
such importance it v/as prudent to deliberate twice, or, like 
the Athenian magistrates, the Roman king may have had 
to undergo a Dokimasy,t or scrutiny. 

The regal office at Rome very much resembled that of 
the heroic ages in Greece, but it differed from it in being 
elective, not hereditary. The king had the absolute com- 
mand of the army ; he offered the sacrifices for the nation ; 
he convoked the senate and people, and laid laws before 
them ; he could punish by fines and corporal penalties, but 
an appeal from his sentence lay for the citizens (that is, the 
patricians,) to the assembly of the curies ; his power over 
sojourners and others not belonging to the houses was un- 
limited. The king moreover sat every ninth day, and ad- 
ministered justice himself or assigned a judge. He could 
dispose of the booty and the land acquired in war, and a 
large portion of the conquered territory belonged to the 
crown, which was cultivated by the king's clients, and 
yielded him a large revenue. 

Such was the constitution of Rome in the period desig- 
nated by the first three kings. With Ancus the state re- 
ceived a new element, the Plebes, or Plebs. 

In every state regulated on the principle of houses, there 
naturally grows up a Demos, Plebs, or commonalty, the 
members of which are free, under the protection of the law, 
may acquire real property, make by-laws for themselves, but 
though bound to serve in war, are excluded from the 
government.| This commonalty is composed of various 
elements, and in some cases, as at Athens, it acquired 

* Cicero de Rep. ii. 13, J 7, 18,20, 21. For tlie general principle of 
a double election of mogistrates see Cicero, Rullus ii. 11. 

t History of Greece, p. 65. 

f Compare the Pericecians of Laconia and the Demos of Attica 
before the time of Solon. 



THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 49 

such a preponderance of strength as to draw all political 
power to itself, and thus convert the state into a democracy. 
But destiny favored Rome in this respect ; for though her 
Plebs was the most respectable commonalty that ever ex- 
isted, the Populus always had sufficient strength to balance 
it, and thus the development of the constitution was grad- 
ual and beneficent.* 

The Roman Plebs was thus formed. In the period which 
we have just described, there was probably at Rome some 
kind of a commonalty, consisting of emancipated clients 
and of persons who had not entered into the client-relation, 
but it was of no account. When, however, on the destruc- 
tion of Alba, a division of conquests and a new arrangement 
of territory took place between the Romans and the Latins, 
the Plebs, which had been already augmented by the inhabi- 
tants of those Latin towns which had been conquered before 
that time, now received a great accession to its body. King 
Ancus assigned the Aventine for the abode of such of the 
Latins as chose to remove to Rome, and it became the site 
of the plebeian city.t The greater part of the Plebs, how- 
ever, who were mostly land-owners, staid on their lands 
away from Rome. It was, moreover, the Italian law of 
nations, that when a town was taken or surrendered, its 
teiiritory fell to the conqueror : the Roman kings had always 
reassigned a part of it to the old possessors, and the Plebs 
therefore contained all the people, gentle and simple, of such 
Latin towns as fell to Rome : many of its members might 
consequently vie with the patricians in nobleness of descent, 
and equalled them in wealth ; though the jealousy of these 
last would not allow them to intermarry with them, and most 
legal relations were to the disadvantage of the plebeians. 

The Romulian constitution, which we have been descri- 
bing, received its complete development by the calling up 
of the Luceres into the senate, but the time when this oc- 
curred is uncertain. The great change of this constitution 
commenced with Tarquinius Priscus in the following man- 
ner. 

It is the nature of an exclusive aristocracy to diminish 
with great rapidity, and eventually to die away, if it refuses 



* The real cause of this difference was probably that the Romans 
were an agricultural, the Athenians a trading people. 

t The Aventine was not included within the walls of Servius 
TuUiua : the plans of Rome which so represent it are Yi'rong. 
5 G 



50 HISTORY OF ROME. 

to replace the houses which become extinct. Such appears 
to have been the case with that of Rome at this time ; the 
curies did not on an average contain more than five houses 
apiece. Tarquinius therefore proposed to form three new 
tribes of houses out of his own retainers and the plebeians, 
and to name them from himself and his friends. As this 
would be making six instead of three tribes, and thus be al- 
tering the form of the constitution, the augur Navius w^as 
put forward to oppose it, and even Heaven, as we have seen, 
called to aid. It would appear that a compromise was ef- 
fected between the king and the patricians, as he in reality 
did what he proposed, for he doubled the number of the 
houses, but left that of the tribes untouched ; each tribe 
therefore now consisted of two parts or centuries. 

The Plebs, meantime, advanced daily in numbers, wealth, 
and power by the various accessions which it received. 
The legislator whom we name Servius Tullius saw the 
advantage of giving it more organization than it had yet 
obtained, and he accordingly divided it into local tribes. 
The number of these tribes was thirty, answering to that 
of the patrician curies and of the Latin towns ; four of 
them were civic or in the city, the remaining twenty-six 
were rural ; of these, ten lay beyond the Tiber in Etruria. 
These tribes being local, each had its separate regioji, which 
bore the same name with itself. Each tribe had its tribuife, 
who was its captain in war, its chief magistrate in peace ; 
he apportioned the tax {tributum^') which the tribe had to 
pay among the tribesmen, (tribules,) regulated their con- 
tingent in the army, and inspected the condition of every 
family. The plebeian tribes when met in assembly elected 
their tribunes and other magistrates, made laws for their 
own regulation, imposed rates for common objects, etc. 

Rome now consisted of two united but distinct peoples, 
governed by one prince, with a common public interest, but 
yet without even the right of intermarriage. These were 
the Populus or burghers, and the Plebs or commonalty ; 
equally free, but with the advantage in point of honor on 
the side of the former.! But the legislator saw danger in 

* Tributiim comes from tribus, not the reverse. 

t The assemblies (comitia) of the Populus were held on the Comi- 
tium, those of the Plebs in the Forum ; the Rostra, a long stage from 
which the magistrates spoke in public, separated these two places, 
which lay on the same level, and which were, in common use, in- 
cluded under the name Forum. 



THE ROMAN CONSTITUTIQN. 



51 



this separation, and he sought to obviate it by an institution 
in which both should be comprised, and by which birth and 
wealth should have their due and full influence in the state. 
This he proposed to effect by arranging the whole popula- 
tion in Classes, subdivided into Centuries. The form in 
which we must conceive the people in this arrangement is 
that of an Army, [Exercitus,) as it was called, composed 
of cavalry, infantry, artillery, and its baggage-train, anid it 
met on the Campus Martins without the city. 

The three original tribes or centuries of Romulus, with 
the three of Tarquinius, contained all the patricians without 
distinction of property : they were named the Six Suffrages, 
(Sex Suffi'agia.) To these Servius added twelve centuries 
of plebeian notables, or men of superior wealth, a kind of 
plebeian nobility, whose honors descended to their posterity ; 
these centuries were open ; any plebeian might be raised to 
them. The eighteen centuries, under the name of Knights, 
or Horsemen, [Equites,) formed the cavalry of the Roman 
army. If any member of them was so reduced in circum- 
stances as not to be able to purchase a war-horse for himself, 
and a slave and horse to attend and follow him to the field, 
the state assigned him a '«um of 10,000 asses for that pur- 
pose, and for their maintenance an annual rent-charge of 
2000 asses on the estates of single women and orphans, who 
were thus made to contribute to the defence of the state 
which gave them protection. If a knight was degraded, as 
sometimes occurred, his horse was sold to reimburse the 
state, and his pension was assigned to another. 

After the eighteen equestrian Centuries came the infan- 
try, composed entirely of plebeians, arranged in five Classes 
in the order of their property, and armed in the same pro- 
portion, as the following table will show : 



Class 



Property. 



I. 100,000 asses and upwards. 



II. 75,000 asses and upwards. 



III. 

IV. 
V. 



50,000 asses and upwards. 

2.5,000 asses and upwards. 
12,500 asses and upwards. 



Centuries. Arms. 

'Helmet. 
Shield. 

40 of old, 40 of young men = 80 <| greSesl* 

Sword. 

Spear. 

'Helmet. 

Shield. 

10 of old, 10 of young men = 20<i[ Greaves. 

I Sword. • 
[Spear. 

1 n i^ 1 1 1 n r cn\ Helmet, shield 

10 of old, 10 of young men = 20 j g^^^^^^ '^p^^^^ 

10 of old, 10 of young men = 20 Spear and dart. 
15 of old, 15 of young men = 30 Slings. 



170 



52 , HISTORY OF ROME. 

Those whose property was under 12,500 asses were ar- 
ranged in centuries out of the classes. Of these centuries 
there were four, as will thus appear. All in the centuries 
taken together were divided into Asssiduan or Lociipletes 
and Proletarians, the former containing all down to those 
who had 1500 asses, the latter those who had less than that 
surn. Now the Assiduans below the classes were divided 
into Accensi, or those who had from 7000 to 12,500 asses, 
and Velati, who had from 1500 to 7000 ; and the Pro- 
letarians were again divided into Proletarians, or those who 
had from 375 to 1500 asses, and Capite Censi, or those who 
had less than 375 asses, thus making four in all. The cor- 
porations of carpenters, [fabri,) trumpeters, {liticenes,) and 
horn-blowers, [cornicines,) formed three centuries, of which 
the first stood and voted with the first class, the last two 
with the fifth. The entire number of centuries therefore 
was 195,* viz. 

Equestrian 18 

Classes 170 

Assiduans 2 

Proletarians 2 

Mechanists 3 

•p 

195 

When the centuries were assembled on the Field of Mars, 
their place of meeting, they voted on elections, laws, or any 
other matters previously prepared in the senate. Their 
power to reject was absolute, but their assent required to be 
confirmed by the patricians in their curies. They voted in 
the follovi^ing order. The Six Suffrages; the Plebeian eques- 
trian centuries ; the first class, and the carpenters ; the re- 
maining classes ; the two centuries of musicians ; the Ac- 
censi ; the Velati ; the Proletarians ; the Capite Censi. If 
the first three divisions were unanimous, it was needless to 
call up the remainder ; for, as we may see, they formed a ma- 
jority of 99 to 9B of the whole. Hence the design of the 
legislator is apparent ; he aimed at forming a mingled aris- 
tocracy and timocracy,t by placing the political power in 
the hands of the noble and the wealthy, | and to stave off" 

* This view depends on Niebuhr's (vol. i. p. 444) emendation of a 
passage in Cicero de Republica. 

t The timocracy of Solon (Hist, of Greece, P. 1. c. vii.) was quite 
different from this. It related solely to eligibility to office, this of Ser 
vius to elections. 

t " Curavit, ne plurivium valcant phirlmi." (Cicero de Rep. ii. 22.) 



THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. ^ 53 

the evils of democracy, while at the same time all should be 
content, no one being without a place in the constitution. 

This principle of giving influence to the minority was 
also attended to in the division of the classes into centuries 
of old men and young men. The former contained those 
who were past forty-five years, and calculations show that 
their number could not have been more than one half of 
that of the latter ; yet, as we see, the number of their cen- 
turies, and therefore of their votes, was equal. 

We must not let ourselves be misled by the word century^ 
and suppose that because the first class had four times as 
many centuries as the second, it therefore contained four 
times the number of individuals. The real fact was, it 
had four times as many votes; it being the legislator's 
design that the votes of each class should be to those of the 
whole five, as the taxable property of that class was to that 
of the five, and consequently the number of citizens in each 
be in inverse proportion to the sums designating their 
property ; therefore as 



100,000 : 75,000 

: 50,000 

- : 25,000 

: 12,500 



4 : 3 

6 : 3 

12 : 3 

24 : 3 



Three of the first must have had as much property as four 
of the second, six of the third, and so on; while the centu- 
ries of the third, for instance, must have contained twice, 
those of the fifth eight times, as many citizens as those of 
the first. In like manner, the property of each of the three 
classes following the first must have been a fourth, that of 
the fifth three eighths, of its property.* Multiplying, then, 
the centuries by the relative numbers of the properties of 
the classes, we find 

80 X 3 = 240 ^ 

20 V 6 = 120 > '^^ dividing by 40, their 

20 X 12 = 240 ( common measure, 



30 X 24 = 720 




35 



So that of thirty-five citizens, six were in the first class, and 
had more influence in the state than the remaining twenty- 

* For 80, 20, 20, 20, 30, (the numbers of the centuries,) are to each 
other as 1, 1, 4, ^, f. 

5* 



54 HISTORY OF ROME. 

nine ; the number of citizens in the second class was a thira 
of those in the first; that of the third a half, and so on. If 
then, as there is reason to suppose, the first class contained 
6000 citizens, the whole five contained 35,000 — the number 
of plebeians (exclusive of the knights) possessing property 
above 12,500 asses. 

As we have above observed, the Centuries, when assem- 
bled on the Field of Mars, formed an army ; the eighteen 
equestrian centuries were the cavalry; the Classes the in- 
fantry ; the Proletarians the baggage train ; there were also 
the artillerists (fahri) and the musicians. The first class 
usually sent forty centuries of thirty men each, (one from 
each tribe,) or 1200 men, to the field ; the second and third 
together gave the same number, as did also the fourth and 
fifth ; making a total of one hundred and twenty centuries, 
or 3600 men, consisting of three divisions of 1200 men each, 
one of hoplites or men in full armor, one of men in half ar- 
mor, and one of light troops. This body, named a Legion,* 
was drawn up in phalanx after the manner of the Greeks, 
each century composed of the first two divisions being 
drawn up three in front and ten deep, the men of the first 
class forming the first five ranks ; whence we see why the 
quantity of armor was diminished as the classes descended, 
those who stood behind being covered by the bodies and 
armor of those in front. The light troops, forming what 
was called a caterva, stood apart from the phalanx. The 
Accensi stood apart from both ; it was their duty to take 
the arms and places of the killed or wounded, and as in 
such cases the man immediately behind stepped into the 
gap, and he was succeeded by the man behind him, the 
places of the Accensi were always in the rear, where they 
acted merely mechanically in giving weight and consistency 
to the mass. 

In this system, therefore, men had to encounter danger in 
exact proportion to the stake they had in the state, and to the 
political advantages which they enjoyed ; for the knights 
also purchased their precedence by being exposed to greater 
danger, as they were badly equipped, and riding without 
stirrups were easily unhorsed and disarmed, and were ex- 
posed to the missiles of the enemy's light troops. 



* From lego, to select. We are not to suppose that one legion 
formed the whole army. This was only the rule by which the legions 
were raised. 



THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. SS 

Another part of this legislation was the establishment of 
a regular system of taxation by the Census. Every citizen 
was bound to give an honest return of the number of his 
family, and of his taxable property. A registry of births 
was kept in the temple of Lucina, one of deaths in that of 
Libitina ; the country people were registered at the festival 
of the Paganalia. All changes of abode and transfers of 
property were to be notified to the proper magistrate. The 
tribute was paid by the Plebs ; it was so much a thousand 
on the property given in at the census, varying according 
to the exigencies of the state, but unfair, inasmuch as debts 
were not deducted from the capital, so that a man paid in 
proportion to his nominal, not his actual property. This 
property consisted of lands, houses, slaves, cattle, money, 
and every other object of what was called Quiritary prop- 
erty, or res mancipii. None but Assiduans were thus taxed ; 
the Proletarians were exempt from taxes. Sojourners and 
others, who were not in the Classes or Centuries, paid, under 
the name of JErarians, such arbitrary sums as the state 
imposed for licenses to 'carry on trades, etc. The patricians 
paid, like the plebeians, for their property of the same kind 
with theirs, and they yielded the state a tithe of the prod- 
uce of the public lands, which they held exclusively as 
tenants. 

Though Servius thus gave form and consistency to the 
revenue, we are not to suppose that most if not all of these 
taxes did not exist before his time ; there were these and 
port-duties and other charges, from which and the mcmubicB, 
or spoils of war, the kings derived a large revenue, as is 
proved by the great works which they executed. These 
works were the Capitoline temple, with its huge substruc- 
tions, the sewers and the city wall. Of the first we have 
already spoken : the Cloaca Maxima, or great sewer, which 
still exists, is composed of three vaults within one another, 
all formed of hewn blocks of the stone named peperino, each 
7i Roman palms long, and A^ thick, put together without 
cement ; the innermost vault is a semicircle eighteen palms 
in vvidth and as many in height. Other sewers carried the 
waters of other parts of the city into the Cloaca Maxima, 
which opens into the river by a gate-like arch in a quay ; 
which quay, being of the same style of architecture, is evi- 
dently coeval with it. The wall of Servius, from the Col- 
line to the Esquiline gate, a distance of nearly a mile, 
was the third great work of the kings. This consisted of a 



56 HISTORY OF ROME. 

mound of clay, (for there is no stone here,) 50 feet wide and 
60 high, faced with a skirting of flag-stones, and flanked 
with towers. It was formed of the clay raised from a moat 
or ditch in front of it, 100 feet wide and 30 deep. A similar 
waii extended from the Colline gate to the western steeps 
of the Quirinal hill. 

These works plainly prove, that Rome under her later 
kings was the capital of a powerful state. The greatness 
of Rome in her regal period is further shown by a com- 
mercial treaty with Carthage, made in the first year of the 
Repiblic* In this treaty Rome stipulates for herself and her 
subject towns Ardea, Laurentum, Aricia, Antium, Circeii, 
and Terracina ; and she also extends her protecting power to 
the Latins, who dwelt to the south of this last-named place. 
This dominion, as we shall presently see, she lost in con- 
sequence of her revolution ; and nearly two centuries elapsed 
before she was able to regain it. 



* Polybius, iii. 22, 26. The consuls named in it are Brutus and 
Horatius. • 



THE 



HISTORY OF ROME 



PART II.* 

THE REPUBLIC — CONQUEST OF ITALY. 



CHAPTER 1. 

BEGINNING OF THE REPUBLIC. THE DICTATORSHIP. RO- 
MAN LAW OP DEBT. DISTRESS CAUSED BY THE LAW OP 

DEBT. SECESSION TO THE SACRED MOUNT. THE TRI- 
BUNATE. LATIN CONSTITUTION. TREATY WITH THE 

LATINS. WAR WITH THE VOLSCIANS. TREATY WITH 

THE HERNICANS. , 

In the preceding Part we have carried the history down 
beyond the point at which the Regal Period properly speak- 
ing terminates ; but we wished to give the poetic narrative 
complete and separate from that which may claim to be re- 
garded as an approximation to the truth. We must now 
therefore go back to the origin of the Republic. 

Be the acts recorded of the last Roman king true or false, 
there can be little doubt that he was a tyrant in the bad 
sense of the word, and as bad as the worst of those in 
Greece and her colonies at that period. The patricians 
who aided him to usurp the throne, in order that they 
might deprive the plebeians of the rights and liberties se- 
cured to them by the constitution of Servius, soon felt that 



* Livy, Dionysius, (to the year 312,) and the epitomators Zonaras, 
Orosius, Eutropius, Florus, and Aurelius Victor, are the consecutive 
authorities for this Part. There are also Plutarch's lives of Poplicola, 
CorioUnus, Camillus, and Pyrrhus. 

H 



58 HISTORY OF ROME. 

they liad only procured for themselves a harsh and cruel 
master, and they gladly joined with the plebeians to expel 
him, (A. U. 244.) A return was made to the constitution of 
Servius. In agreement with the commentaries of that prince, 
two annual magistrates, at first named Prsetors, afterwards 
Consuls,* possessed of all the regal authority, saving only the 
sacerdotal functions, were placed at the head of the state;- 
and there is reason to think that at first they were chosen 
one from each of the orders. t The right of appealing to 
their peers, (the curies,) which the patricians had always 
enjoyed, was extended by the Valerian law to the plebeians, 
who were now empowered to appeal to their tribes. The 
royal demesne lands were also distributed in small freeholds 
among a portion of the more needy plebeians. The senate, 
which had been greatly reduced by the cruelty of the tyrant, 
was completed to the original number of three hundred out 
of the plebeian equestrian centuries. These new members 
were named Conscripts, [Conscripti,) to distinguish them 
from the Patres, or patrician senators.^ 

The loss of the lands beyond the Tiber, in consequence 
of the Tuscan conquest of Rome, greatly crippled the state. 
Advantage was taken of this by the Volscians and Sabines ; 
but if we credit the annals, the arms of Rome met with uni- 
form success against them. On occasion of a war with the 
latter people, (250,)^ a man of rank among them, named 
Attus Clausus, being menaced with impeachment for having 
opposed the war, resolved to go over to the Romans. Quit- 
ting Regillus, where he abode, he came with his gentiles 
and clients, to the number of five thousand, to Rome, where 
he took the name of Appius Claudius, and was admitted 
into the body of the patricians ; land beyond the Anio was 
assigned to his followers, and they formed a tribe named 



* Liv. iii. 55, Dion, liii. 13. Zonaras, viu 19. Prcctor^ i. e. PrcB- 
itor, which the Greeks always rendered orQaTtjyog, evidently referred 
primarily to military command. Consul means merely colleague, for, 
as in exul^ prcesul, the syllable sul denotes one icho is. The derivation 
from consulo cannot be received. .[The authority of Q,uintilian must 
certainly be considered as superior to that of Mr. Keightley on this point. 
He distinctly says, (Inst. Orat. I. 6,) " Sit enim Consul a consu- 
lendo, vel a judicando ; nam et hoc consulcre veteres appellaverunt, 
unde adhuc remanet illud, — Rogat, honi consular, id est, bonum 
judices." J. T. S.] 

t For, as observed above, Brutus was a plebeian. 

t Patres Conscripti is therefore Patres et Conscripti. (Liv. ii. 1.) 
See above, p. 4, note. 



BEGINNING OF THE REPUBLIC. 5*^ 

the Claudian.* The house of the Claudii is eminent in 
Roman story ; it produced many an able, hardly a great, 
and not a single noble-minded man. Indomitable pride and 
opposition to the rights of the people were its characteristic 
quaJities.t 

In the year 253 a new magistracy, named the Dictator- 
ship, was instituted. The name, and perhaps the office, is 
said to have been borrowed from the Latins. | The dictator 
was invested with the full regal authority for the space of 
six months ; he was nominated by the consul or interrex 
on the direction of the senate, and he received the imperium 
from the curies. He was preceded by twenty-four lictors 
with axes in the fasces, as no appeal lay from his sentence. 
The dictator always nominated an officer, named the Mas- 
ter of the Horse, {3Iagister Equiturn,) who was to him what 
the tribune of the Celeres had been to the kings.§ T, Lar- 
cius is said to have been the first dictator. 

The dictatorship was ostensively instituted against the 
public enemy, but the oppression of the plebeians was its 
real object. It was a part of the plan which the patricians 
had now formed for depriving them of all their rights and 
advantages, and reducing them to the condition of the Etrus- 
can serfs, and thus, though its authors thought not so, of 
depriving Rome of all chance of ever becoming great. The 
plebeians had been already justled out of the consulate : it 
was proposed to elude by the dictatorship the right of ap- 
peal given by the Valerian law, and reestablish the unlim- 
ited authority of the chief magistrate even within the 
city and the mile round it ; and finally, by a rigorous en- 
forcement of the law of debt, to reduce them to actual 
slavery. 

At Rome, as in the ancient world in general, the law of 

* Niebulir thinks that as by the peace which the consul Sp. Cassius 
concluded (252) with the Sabines, (Dionys. v. 49,) a portion of territory 
was ceded to Rome, it was thus that the Claudian gens and tribe were 
formed in lieu of the Tarquinian, which had been broken up. The 
tribes were but twenty till the year 259, when the Crustumine was 
formed. 

t That is, the patricians ; the plebeian family of the Marcelli were 
of a far better character. 

X That the Latins had dictators is quite certain. It is not equally 
so that they gave them such power as is here spoken of. The Romans 
probably borrowed only the name to avoid that of rex. 

§ " Dictatoribus Magistri Equiturn injungebantur : sic quomodo Regi- 
bzis Tribuni Celerum." — Pomponius Dig. lib. i. tit. ii. 1, quoted by the 
learned translators of Niebuhr's Hist. orRorae, i. 515. 



©y HISTORY OF ROME. 

« 

debt was extremely severe. It was to this effect; a per* 
son wishing to borrow money entered into a nexum, or be- 
came wc3;m.5, when, in the presence of witnesses, under the 
form of a sale, he pledged himself and all belonging to him 
for payment of a sum of money which he then received. 
If this money was not repaid at the appointed time, the 
debtor was brought before the praetor, who assigned [addice- 
hat) him as a slave to his creditor, whence he was termed 
addictus. Such of the debtor's children and grandchildren 
as were still under his authority shared his fate, and were 
led off in bonds with him to the creditor's work-house. 

The rate of interest was unlimited by law ; loans were 
usually made for the year of ten months,* at the end of 
which period if the principal was not repaid, the interest was 
frequently added to it, {versura,) and the principal was often 
thus gradually raised to several times its original amount, 
and a debt accumulated which could never be discharged. 
The creditors were generally the patricians either in their 
own names or as the patrons of their clients, in whose hands 
were all branches of trade, banking included : the debtors 
were the plebeians, who were solely devoted to agriculture. 
For after the abolition of royalty the patricians, having 
gotten the government into their own hands, ceased to pay 
the tithes off the public lands which they held ; and all the 
booty acquired in war was reduced in publicum, that is, 
brought into the chest of the populus ; they had also the 
money paid for protections, licenses, etc., by the clients, and 
consequently were rich. On the other hand the tribute 
was rigorously exacted from the plebeians, whose little 
farms lying frequently at a distance from Rome, were ex- 
posed to the ravages of the enemy, their houses were burnt, 
their cattle carried off, their farming implements destroyed. 
Add to this that the loss of the lands beyond the Tiber had 
reduced many families to absolute beggary, and further, 
that the patricians actually excluded them from all share 
in the public pastures. We may thus see how the bulk of 
the plebeians may have been deeply in debt and driven to 
a state of despair by the rigour of their creditors. 

In such a state of things a spark will kindle a conflagra- 
tion. When (259) Appius Claudius and P. gervilius were 



* Besides the ordinary lunar year of twelve months, the Romans 
used, for particular purposes, the cyclic year of ten months, borrowed 
from the Tuscans. 



ROMAN liAW OF DEBT. 61 

consuls, an old man, covered with filth and rags, with 
squalid hair and beard, pale and emaciated, rushed one day 
into the Forum and implored the aid of the people, showing 
the scars of wounds received in eight-and-twenty battles. 
Several, recognizing in him one who had been a brave cap- 
tain, eagerly inquired the cause of his present wretched 
appearance. He said that while he was serving in the 
Sabine war his house and farm-yard had been plundered 
and burnt by the enemy ; the tributes had nevertheless been 
exacted of him ; he had been obliged to borrow money ; 
principal and accumulated interest had eaten up all his prop- 
erty ; the sentence of the law had given himself and his 
two sons as slaves to his creditor. He then stripped his 
back and showed the marks of recent stripes. A general 
uproar arose ; all, both in and out of debt, {nexi and soluti,) 
assembled and clamored for some legal relief. With dif- 
ficulty a sufficient number of senators (such was their ter- 
ror) could be brought together. Appius proposed to employ 
force, Servilius was for milder courses. Just then news 
arrived that the Volscians were in arms ; the people exulted, 
telling the patricians to go fight their own battles, and re- 
fused to give their names for the legions. The senate then 
empowered Servilius to treat with them. He issued an 
edict proclaiming that no one who was in slavery for debt 
should be prevented from serving if he chose, and that as 
long as a man was under arms no one should touch his 
property or keep his children in bondage. All the pledged 
(next) who were present then gave their names, the bound 
(addicti) hastened on all sides from their dungeons, and a 
large army took the field under the consul. The Volscians 
were defeated, their town of Suessa Pometia taken, and the 
plunder given up to the army. An Auruncan army which 
came to the aid of the Volscians was routed a few days 
after near Aricia. Servilius led home his victorious army 
full of hopes ; but these hopes were bitterly deceived, when 
the iron-hearted Appius ordered the debtor-slaves back to 
their prisons and assigned the pledged to the creditors. 
But the people stood on their defence, and repelled th-e 
officers and those who went to aid them, at the same time 
calling on Servilius to perform his promises. The consul, 
by attempting to steer a middle course, lost favor with 
both parties, and the year passed away without any thing 
being done. 

The next year, (260,) when the consuls, A. Virginius and 
6 



62 HISTORY OF ROME. 

T. Vetusius, attempted to levy an army, the people refused 
to give their names. They now also held nocturnal meet- 
ings in their own quarters on the Aventine and Esquiline, 
to concert measures of resistance, and even went so far as 
to demand a total abolition of debts. A portion of the pa- 
tricians were willing to purchase peace even on these terms ; 
others thought it might suffice to restore their liberty and 
property to those who had served the year before : Appius 
averred that wantonness, not poverty, was the disease of the 
people, and that a dictator, from whom there was no appeal, 
would soon cure them. It was resolved, therefore, to try 
the effect of the dictatorship, and the more violent party 
would have risked the very existence of the state by placing 
Appius himself in the office; but the milder and more pru- 
dent succeeded in appointing M. Valerius, in whom they 
knevt^ the people would confide. 

The dictator issued an edict similar to that of Servilius ; 
the people, in reliance on his name and power, readily gave 
their names ; ten legions* were raised, four for the dicta- 
tor, three for each consul. Valerius marched against the 
Sabines, one consul against the ^Equians, the other against 
the Volscians. Victory was every where with the Romans. 
Valerius, on his return, lost no time in bringing the affair 
of the pledged before the senate, and finding he could get 
no measure of relief passed, he laid down his office. The 
people, satisfied that he had kept his faith, received him with 
acclamations, and attended him in token of honor from the 
Forum to his house. 

The dictator's army had been disbanded, but either one 
or both of the consular armies was still under arms. The 
plebeians who formed it, seeing no chance of legal relief, 
made L. Sicinius Bellutus their leader, crossed the Anio, and 
encamped on an adjacent eminence in the Crustumine dis- 
trict ; the consuls and the patricians who were among them 
were dismissed without injury. The plebeians of the city 
meantime occupied the Aventine, and there was every pros- 
pect of affairs coming to civil war and bloodshed. For we 
must bear in mind that the patricians, the original populus of 
Rome, must have been still a numerous body ; they were 
of a martial character, like every body of the kind, and 
their numerous clients stood faithfully by them on all occa- 
sions; they were also the government, and had the means 

* This is incredible ; at the Alia the Romans had but four legions. 



ROMAN LAW OF DEBT. 63 

of negotiating foreign aid. Moreover, the hills of Rome 
were all fortresses, like the Capitol, their sides being made 
steep and abrupt, and any attempt to carry the Palatine or 
the duirinal, for instance, might have cost much blood. 

Both sides were aware that the issue of the conflict might 
be doubtful, and that the ^quians and Volscians or the 
Etruscans might take advantage of it to ruin Rome. A 
mutual wish for accommodation, therefore, prevailed ; and 
the patricians, having strengthened themselves by an alli- 
ance with the Latins, deputed the First Ten of the senate 
to the plebeian camp to treat of peace. One of these, named 
Agrippa Menenius, is said to have addressed on this occa- 
sion the following apologue to the people : — 

" In those times when all was not at unity, as now, in 
man, but every member had its own plans and its own lan- 
guage, the other members became quite indignant that they 
should all toil and labor for the belly, while it remained at 
its ease in the midst of them doing nothing but enjoying 
itself They therefore agreed among themselves that the 
hands should not convey any food to the mouth, nor the 
mouth receive it, nor the teeth chew it. But while they 
thus thought to starve the belly out, they found themselves 
and the whole body reduced to the most deplorable state of 
feebleness, and they then saw that the belly is by no means 
useless, that it gives as well as receives nourishment, dis- 
tributing to all parts of the body the means of life and 
health." 

Having propounded this fable, the meaning of which was 
obvious,* Menenius and his colleagues proceeded to treat, 
and a peace was made and sworn to by the two orders. By 
this treaty all outstanding debts were cancelled, and all 
who were in slavery for debt were set at liberty ; but the 
plebs neither regained the consulate nor any other honors ; 
for the senate, with the usual wisdom of an aristocracy, 
contrived to separate the interests of the lower order of 
plebeians from those of their gentry, by making individual 
sacrifices in the remission of debts, while they retained the 
solid advantages of place and power for their order. They 

* By the belly must be understood the moneyed men, not the 
government ; this would have been the head. T. Q,uinctius Flami- 
ninus seeing Philopoemon, the Achaean general, with plenty ofhoplites 
and horsemen, but without money, said (alluding to his make,) " Phil- 
opoemon has legs and arms, but no belly." (Plut. Apoph. Reg, et Imp., 
Opera, vol. viii. p. 144, ed. Hutten.) 



64 HISTORY OF ROME. 

also managed to have no alteration made in the law of debt. 
The plebeians, having offered sacrifice to Jupiter on the 
mount where they had encamped, which thence was named 
the Sacred Mount, [Blons Sacer,) returned to their former 
dwellings. 

But the real gain of the plebeians, and as it proved, of 
the patricians also, was the making the tribunate an invio- 
lable magistracy. Hitherto it was with danger to them- 
selves, that the tribunes of the plebs had attempted to give 
the protection secured to the people by the Valerian law ; 
now, in the solemn compact between the orders, it was de- 
clared that any one who killed or injured a tribune should 
be accursed, {sacer, i. e. outlawed,) and any one might slay 
him with impunity, and his property was forfeit to the 
temple of Ceres. The house of the tribune stood open 
night and day, that the injured might repair to it for suc- 
cor. The number of tribunes in the new-modelled trib- 
unate, and who were elected on the Sacred Mount, was 
two, C. Licinius and L. Albinius ; to these, three more, 
among whom was Sicinius, were afterwards added, and 
there thus was one for each of the Classes. It is remark- 
able, as an instance of the efforts made by the patricians to 
keep up their power, that the election of the tribunes re- 
quired the confirmation of the curies. 

The tribunes were purely a plebeian magistracy, the rep- 
resentatives of their order, and its protectors against the 
supreme power. They could not act as judges, or impose 
penalties on offending patricians ; they could only bring 
them before the court of the commonalty. And here it 
must be remarked, as a peculiarity of the national law of 
ancient Italy, that a people who had been injured, either 
collectively or in the person of one of its members, had the 
right of trying the offender, whom his countrymen, if there 
was a treaty with them, were bound to give up for the pur- 
pose. For it was expected that sworn judges would be 
more likely to acquit him, if innocent, than his gentiles, 
tribesmen, etc. to condemn him if guilty.* 

Another plebeian office, said to have been instituted 
(more probably modified) at this time, was the ^dileship. 
The sediles acted as judges under the tribunes, and they 



* How much more consonant to justice our own practice of trying 
by a mixed jury of natives and foreigners ! Yet perhaps it would not 
have answered in those times. 



THE TRIBUNATE. 65 

kept the archives of the plebs in the temple of Ceres, which 
was under their care. 

The time of the consular election having come on during 
the secession, the populus had appointed Sp. Cassius Viscel- 
linus and Postumius Cominius, who had already been con- 
suls, and a treaty was forthwith concluded with the Latins, 
the existence of which enabled the patricians to make such 
advantageous terms with the plebeians. A sketch of the 
Latin constitution may here be useful. 

We have more than once had occasion to notice the pred- 
ilection of the ancients for political numbers. That of the 
Latins, the Albans, and the Romans was thirty, or rather 
three tens ; and therefore, as Rome had her thirty curies 
and tribes, so Latium consisted of a union of thirty towns. 
Each of these towns had its senate of one hundred members, 
divided into ten decuries, the decurion or foreman of each 
of which was deputed to the general senate of the nation, 
which assembled at the grove and fount of Ferentina, and 
thus, like that of Rome, contained three hundred members. 
The union among the Latin towns, though less close than 
that among the Roman tribes, was much more intimate 
than the Greek federations in general, and they always 
acted as one state, with a common interest. Each city had 
its dictator, one of whom always was dictator over the 
whole nation, and its head in war and in the performance 
of the great national religious rites. 

The treaty, now made on terms of perfect equality be- 
tween the two nations, shows how Rome had fallen from 
her power under her kings. It was to this effect : " There 
shall be peace between the Romans and Latins as long as 
heaven and earth shall keep their place ; and they shall 
neither war themselves against each other, nor instigate 
others to do so, nor grant a safe passage to the enemies ; 
and they shall aid one another, when attacked, with all 
their might; they shall share equally between them the 
spoils and booty gained in common wars ; private suits 
shall be decided within ten days, in the place where the 
engagement was made ; nothing may be added to or taken 
from this treaty without the consent of the Romans and 
all the Latins.* 

Among the spoils of war mentioned in this treaty was 
the territory won from conquered states, which was usually 

^ Dionys. vi. 95. 
6* I 



66 HISTORY OF ROME. 

added to the public land, and the Latins had a demesne 
of this kind as well as the Romans. The Latins also had 
their equal share in the colonies which were planted. Thes^ 
Roman, or rather Italian, colonies were of a totally different 
nature from those of the Greeks ; * they were garrisons 
placed in a conquered town to keep it in subjection. To 
these colonists, who were usually three hundred in number, 
a third of the lands of the conquered people was assigned, 
and the government was placed in their hands, they, be- 
ing to the original inhabitants, who retained the rest of 
their lands, what the populus at Rome was to the com- 
monalty. 

The Volscians, after the defeat they had sustained in the 
year 260, remained quiet for some time. Their elective 
king Attus Tullius, however, deeming that advantage might 
be taken of the divisions at Rome, which would prevent 
effectual aid being given to the Latins, resolved, if possible, 
to rekindle the war, and he used the following occasion for 
that purpose. 

In the year 263 the Great Games at Rome were cele- 
brated anew. For, some time before, when they were com- 
mencing, and the procession of the images of the gods was 
about to go round the Circus to hallow it, a slave, whom his 
master had condemned to death, was driven through it and 
scourged. No attention was paid to this circumstance, 
and the games went on; but soon after the city was visited 
by a pestilence, and many monstrous births occurred. The 
soothsayers could point out no remedy. At length Jupiter 
appeared in a dream to a countryman, named T. Latinius, 
and directed him to go tell the consuls that the praeluder 
{prcBsultor) had been displeasing to him. Fearing to be 
laughed at by the magistrates, Latinius did not venture to 
go near them. A few days after his son died suddenly, and 
the vision again appeared, menacing him with a greater evil 
if he did not go to the consuls. The simple man still 
hesitated,' and he lost the use of his limbs. He then revealed 
the matter to his kinsmen and friends, and they all agreed 
that he should be carried as he was, in his bed, to the con- 
suls in the Forum. By their direction he was brought into 
the senate-house, and there he told the wonderful tale ; 
and scarcely had he completed it, when lo ! another miracle 

* See History of Greece, Part I. chap. iv. 



WAR WITH THE VOLSCIANS. 67 

took place ; vigor returned all at once to his limbs, and he 
left the senate-house on his feet. 

The games were now renewed with greater splendor 
than ever. The neighboring peoples, as usual, resorted to 
them ; for in Italy, as in Greece and Asia, all solemn festi- 
vals were seasons of sacred peace.* Among those who came 
were numbers of Volscians. Attus Tullius went secretly to 
the consuls, and, reminding them of the unsteady nature of 
his countrymen, expressed his fears lest, imboldened by 
their numbers, they should disturb the sanctity of the feast 
by some deed of violence. The senate in alarm had proc- 
lamation made for all the Volscians to quit Rome by sun- 
set. They departed in deep indignation: at the spring of 
Ferentina they were met by Tullius, who had gone on be- 
fore : he exao-gerated the insult which had been offered 
them in the face of so many Italian peoples, and they re- 
tired to their several towns breathing vengeance. 

The Volscians were joined by their kindred nation the 
iSquians, who were at that time more powerful than they. 
The Roman and Latin colonists were driven out of Circeii, 
and their place taken by Volscians. The country thence to 
Antium (of which place the Volscians also made themselves 
masters) was conquered. The combined armies entered the 
Roman territory, (266 ;) but here a quarrel relative to the 
supreme command broke out between them, and they turned 
their arms against each other. 

In the year 268 the consul Sp. Cassius concluded a 
league with the Hernicans similar to that with the Latins. 
As the political number of the Sabellians, to whom the Her- 
nicans belonged, was four, and they were to receive a third 
of conquests and booty, it follows that four t Hernicans could 
only receive as much as three Romans or Latins. This 

* Hence the Israelites are assured (Exodus xxxiv. 24) that no man 
should " desire their land " when they went up to their three great fes- 
tivals. 

t The cohorts of the Hernicans contained 400 men, (Liv. vii. 7,) 
those of the Samnites the same number, (Id. x. 40;) the Samnite 
legion had 4000 men, (Id. viii. 23 ; x. 38 ; xxii. 24.) The Marsian 
confederacy (see above, p. 5) consisted of four states, so also the 
Samnite ; and that the Hernicans were so divided, may be inferred 
from the 1000 colonists sent to Antium by the three allied nations, 
(Liv. iii. 5,) that is, 400 Hernicans, one hundred for each canton ; 300 
Romans for the three tribes of houses ; 300 Latins for the three 
decuries of their towns. 



6B HISTORY OF ROME. 

close union among the three states was caused by their 
common apprehensions from the Ausonian peoples, who 
were now at the height of their power. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PUBLIC LAND. AGRARIAN LAW OF SPURIUS CASSIU3. 

THE CONSULATE. VOLSCIAN WARS. VEIENTINE WAR. 

THE FABII AT THE CREMERA. SIEGE OF ROME. MURDER 

OF THE TRIBUNE GENUCIUS. ROGATION OF PUBLILIUS 

VOLERO. DEFEAT OF THE ROMAN ARMY. DEATH OF 

APPIUS CLAUDIUS. 

The year 268 is also memorable in the annals of Rome 
as that of the agrarian law of Sp. Cassius Viscellinus, the 
demand for the execution of which proved for so many 
years a source of bitterness and anger between the two 
orders. To understand this matter aright, we must view the 
origin and nature of the Roman public land. 

The small territory about the Palatine belonging to the 
city of Romulus was, as there is reason to suppose, equally 
divided among the ten curies of the Ramnes. The house- 
holders, of whom there were one hundred in each cury, had 
each a garden of two jugers, (one of arable, one of planta- 
tion land,) which was termed a heredium, and one hundred 
of these heredia, or two hundred jugers, formed the century 
or district of the cury. But these ten centuries did not 
compose the whole of the land ; a part was assigned for 
the service of the gods and for the royal demesnes, and an- 
other portion remained as common or public land.* This 
last was all grass-land, and every citizen had a right to feed 
his cattle on it, paying so much a head grazing-money to 
the state. We may suppose the two communities which 
formed the remaining tribes of regal Rome to have had their 
lands similarly divided, if not originally, at least subsequently, 
for it was the rule in ancient Italy, as all over the East, and 
even among ourselves,f that all landed property proceeded 

* See above, p. 15. t Blackstone, Book iL ch. 7. 



THE PUBLIC LAND. 69 

from the sovereign ; and therefore whenever any community 
received the Roman franchise, it made a formal surrender 
of its lands to the state, and then received them back from 
it. Hence we hear of assignments of land by the early kings 
to the three tribes and to the plebs ; for the Latin commu- 
nities, which in the time of King Ancus began to form this 
last body, of course surrendered and received again their 
lands in the usual manner. 

The original property * of the three patrician tribes there- 
fore consisted of the six thousand jugers which formed their 
heredia, of their original common land, and of all that had 
been acquired previous to the formation of the plebs ; this was 
their property, and could not be affected by any law. But 
when the plebs was increased, and, as the infantry of the 
legion, was a chief agent in the acquisition of territory, it 
was manifest that they had a right to a share in what was 
won. Servius therefore enacted, that after every conquest 
a portion of the arable land which had been gained should 
be assigned in property to such plebeians as required it, in 
lots or farms of seven jugers apiece, and they were also to 
have the use of the public pastures in common with the 
patricians on the same conditions. The remainder of the 
arable land was the property of the state ; the use or enjoy 
ment of it under the name of possession (subject to resump- 
tion at any time) was given to the patricians exclusively ; 
for this they were bound to pay the state annually a tithe 
or tenth of the produce of the corn-lands and two tenths of 
that of vine-yards and olive-yards.t These possessions 
were transmitted by inheritance, and transferred by sale, as 
it was only in extreme cases that the state exercised its 
power of resumption ; and though the plebeians could not 
originally occupy the public land, they might buy the use of 
portions of it from the patrician occupants. 

To gain the commonalty, at the time of the expulsion of 
Tarquinius, the patricians decreed an assignment of seven 
jugers apiece to the plebeians out of the royal demesnes. 
But as soon as the cause of the tyrant had become hope- 
less, and they had monopolized the supreme power, they 
turned out of the public land those of the plebeians who 
had acquired the use of it in the way above described; and, 



* The property of the patricians all lay within the circuit of five 
miles round the city, 
t Appian, B, C. i. 7. 



70 HISTORY OF ROME. 

what was still more iniquitous, they ceased to pay the tithes 
off the lands which they themselves possessed ; so that the 
tribute of the plebeians had to defray the expenses of wars, 
etc., while the booty acquired was usually sold, and the 
produce diverted to the public chest of the patricians, [in 
'publicum.) Hence, as we have seen, came the distress of 
the plebeians and the secession. 

It was to prevent the recurrence of this state of things 
that that excellent citizen and truly great man Sp. Cassius, 
who in his first consulship had overcome the Sabines, in 
his second formed the treaty with the Latins, and in his 
third that with the Hernicans, in this third also brought 
forward an agrarian law, directing, that of the land acquired 
since the time of King Servius, a part should be assigned to 
the plebeians, the portion of the populus be set out, and 
tithe paid as formerly off all the occupied land. This law 
was passed by the senate and the curies, but the execution 
of it was committed to the consuls of the following year, 
and the ten oldest consulars * of the greater houses, — men 
the most apt to make it a dead letter, as they actually did. 
At the expiration of his office Cassius was accused of 
treason before the curies, by the qusstors Caeso Fabius and 
L. Valerius, and was condemned to death and executed 
more mqjorum, that is, scourged and beheaded ; his house 
was razed, and its site left desolate, t but his law remained, 
and, as we shall see, avenged him on his murderers. 

It is a remarkable circumstance, (but one which seems 
to be clearly ascertained,) that the Ramnes and Titienses 
among the patricians seem to have aimed at excluding the 
Lu ceres as well as the plebeians from the government ; for 
from the institution of the consulate to the year 253, M. 
Horatius is the only consul of the third tribe. In this year, 
however, they recovered their right, and when we call to 
mind that Sp. Cassius was consul the preceding year, we 
may feel inclined to regard that eminent man as the author 
of the change. The consul of the greater houses was named 
the Consul Major, and he took precedence of his colleague. 
This inferiority of the Luceres was marked on all occasions. 

* That is, those who had been consuls. The proper term here 
would be prcEtorians. See above, p. 58. 

t The common account of his being condemned by the people (the 
Plebs) is quite erroneous. He had committed no offence against 
them ; the people who tried and condemned him was, as Livy says, the 
Populus. 



THE CONSULATE. 71 

In the senate none of them but the consulars were author- 
ized to speak. The consulars of the greater houses were 
called on first to give their opinions, then those of the lesser 
houses, next the senators of the greater houses, and finally 
those of the lesser silently voted.* 

The year 269, that of the execution of Sp. Cassius, was 
also that of an attempt on the part of the major houses again 
to monopolize the consulate. During seven successive years, 
(269 — 275,) we find one of the consuls always a Fabius; 
a thing which can hardly have been the result of chance. 
It is therefore probable, that in reliance on their allies, the 
Latins and Hernicans, the elder houses thought they might 
venture on extending their power ; and as the house of the 
Fabii was by far the strongest among them, they agreed to 
let them have for their cooperation one seat in the consu- 
late in perpetuity. t As by one of the Valerian laws the cen- 
turies had the right of choice among the patrician candi- 
dates, which choice was then to be confirmed by the senate 
and curies, and as this course would never suit their present 
design, and they moreover feared the election of some one 
who might be disposed to avenge the murder of Sp. Cassius, 
the senate and curies in 269 boldly nominated Caeso Fabius 
and L. ^milius to the consulate, and then convened the 
centuries to confirm the election ; but these refused to con- 
sent to the abolition of their rights, and quitted the field 
without voting. It was fortunate for the commonalty that the 
grasping ambition of the patricians sought to exclude the 
lesser houses, the larger portion of their own body, from the 



* Cicero de Rep. ii. 20. JNiebuhr (ii. 112 — 114) has, we think, 
made this quite clear. It is this writer's opinion, that the mino- 
res and juniores Patrum of Livy are in reality the lesser houses, 
and not the younger patricians. (See his History -of Rome, vol. ii. 
note 668, and the places there referred to.) It is certainly very re- 
markable that the distinction of via j ores and junio7-es " apTpears very 
frequently down till about the year 310, and never after; though the 
contest between the patricians and plebeians lasted more than a century 
longer ; the young men were, no doubt, just like those of earlier 
times ; and the chronicles became more and more copious." When 
in future we use the phrase lesser houses, it is the juniores Patrum; 
and those who reject Niebuhr's theory may substitute young patri- 
cians for it. 

t A similar agreement would seem to have been made with the 
Valerii at the beginning of the republic, as (omitting, as Livy does, 
the consuls of 248) there was one of them in the consulate in each of 
the first five years. The Valerii and Fabii were both Titienses. See 
also p. 44, 



7S HISTORY OF ROME. 

consulate, and thus forced them to make common cause 
with the plebs, which gave these last time to discover their 
own strength, and to put it forth. 

Though the patricians had passed the agrarian law, nothing 
was further from their thoughts than to let it be executed, 
and they sought to keep up a continued state of war ; for 
while the legions were in the field the Forum was empty, 
and the tribunes had no auditors. The consul, Q.. Fabius, 
therefore (269) led an army against the Volscians and 
JEquians ; but he withheld the plunder from his victorious 
troops, and had it sold, and the produce brought into the 
patrician chest. Next year (270) the consul, L. /Emilius, 
fought with indifferent success against the Volscians. The 
following year, (271,) when the consul, M. Fabius, went to 
enrol troops for the war, the tribune, C. Maenius, forbade 
the levies unless the agrarian law was executed. But the 
consuls went to the mile from the city, at the temple of 
Mars, where the tribunician power ended, and erected their 
tribunal ; they then summoned all who were bound to serve, 
and they seized the property and burned and plundered the 
farms of such as did not appear. These forced levies were 
led by the consul L. Valerius against the Volscians ; but the 
soldiers, though they fought with courage, would not gain a 
victory and booty for the consul and the patricians, whom 
they hated, and Valerius returned without fame. 

It would appear that the greater houses had now become 
aware of the danger of division in their order, and that they 
effected a permanent union with the lesser houses ; for we 
find the senate in 271 appointing Appius Claudius,* with 
one of the Fabii, to the consulate. But the tribunes and 
the plebs were to a man against Claudius ; the tribunes 
would not suffer the curies, the consuls would not allow the 
tribes, to assemble for the elections, and the year expired 
without any consuls being created. In the beginning of the 
next year (272) A. Sempronius Atratinus, the warden of the 
city, (Custos Urhis), as interrex, assembled the centuries, who 
elected C. Julius, a member of the lesser houses, as the 
colleague of Q,. Fabius, who was perhaps also their choice. 
A war with the Veientines commenced this year, but no 
event of importance occurred. 

The year 272 was marked by a formal compromise be- 
tween the patricians and the commonalty, securing to the 

* The Claudii, though of Sabine origin, were among the Luceres. 



' VEIENTINE WAU. 7$ 

centuries the choice of one of the consuls, and leaving the 
appointment of the other with the senate and the curies, 
whose nominee was now the Consul Major* The patri- 
cians made Geeso Fabius consul for the ensuing year, (273,) 
and the centuries gave him Sp. Furius for his colleague. 
The tribune, Sp. Licinius, attempted to stop the levies on 
account of the agrarian law, but the patricians had adopted 
the prudent expedient of procuring, by means of their cli- 
ents in the classes, and by their own influence, the election 
of tribunes favorable to their order, and Licinius was op- 
posed by his own colleagues. Two armies were levied : one 
was sent under Furius against the iEquians, the other under 
Fabius against the Veientines. The former army, under 
the consul of their choice, fought cheerfully ; and their gen- 
eral, in return, divided the booty among them. The case 
was widely different with the army of Fabius. They engaged 
the Veientines and put them to flight, but they would not 
pursue or attack their camp; and in the middle of the night 
they broke up, and abandoning their own camp to the 
enemy, set out for Rome. 

The consuls of the next year (274) were M. Fabius and 
Cn. Manlius ; the former, of course, the nominee of the 
houses. But the Fabii had now seen the folly of attempting 
to govern the state on oligarchic principles, and they were 
become sincerely anxious to conciliate the commonalty. 
The tribune, Ti. Pontificius, vainly attempted to oppose the 
levies, on account of the agrarian law ; his four colleagues 
were unanimous against him ; the armies were raised, and 
led by the two consuls into the Veientine territory ; but, 
warned by the example of the preceding year, the consuls, 
fearing to engage the enemy, kept their men close in their 
camp. The Veientines, who had been largely reenforced 
by volunteers from all parts of Etruria, seeing the inactivity 
of the Romans, and aware of the cause, increased in confi- 
dence ; they rode up to the ramparts of their camp, daring 
them to come forth, and upbraiding them with their cow- 
ardice. The Romans were filled with indignation ; they 
sent their centurions to the consuls, entreating to be led to 
battle : the consuls, secretly well pleased, affected to hesi- 
tate, and declaring that the proper time was not yet arrived, 
forbade any one on pain of death to leave the camp. This 

* He was first the consul of the Ramnes,then of the greater houses. 
See p. 70. 

7 J 



74 HISTORY OF ROME. 

served, as they had expected, but to augment the ardor of 
the soldiers; the Etruscans grew more and more audacious; 
the patience of the Romans could hold out no longer ; they 
pressed to the consuls from all parts of the camp, demand- 
ing the battle. " Swear, then," cried M. Fabius, " that 
ye will not return but as conquerors." The centurion, 
M. Flavoleius, took the oath first, the rest followed him ; 
they seized their arms, issued from the camp, and soon stood 
displayed in array of battle. The Etruscans had hardly time 
to form when the Romans fell on them sword in hand. The 
Fabii were foremost in the attack. Q,uintus, the consul of 
the year 272, received a mortal wound ; his brother, the con- 
sul, rushed forward, calling on his men to remember their 
oath; a third brother, C^so, followed; the soldiers man- 
fully obeyed the call, and drove back the troops opposed to 
them. Manlius was also victorious on the other wing ; but 
as he was pressing on the yielding foe he received a wound, 
which obliged him to retire. His men, thinking him slain, 
fell back ; but the other consul, coming with some horse, 
and crying out that his colleague was alive, restored the 
battle. Meantime a part of the Tuscan troops had fallen 
on the Roman camp ; those left to guard it, unable to re- 
sist them, fell back to the prcBtorium, and made a stand 
there, sending to inform the consuls of their danger. Man- 
lius hastened to the camp, and placing guards at all the 
gates fell on the invaders, who, driven to desperation, formed 
into a close body and rushed on the consul. Manlius re- 
ceived a mortal wound ; those around him were dispersed ; 
a gate was then prudently opened, at which the Tuscans 
gladly hurried out, but they fell in with the troops of the 
victorious consul, and were most of them cut to pieces. The 
victory was complete ; the honor of a triumph was decreed 
to Fabius, but he declined it on account of the death of 
his brother and his colleague ; he distributed the wounded 
soldiers among the patricians, (his own gens taking the 
larger number,) by whom they were tended with the 
greatest care. 

So perfect was the reconciliation now between the Fabii 
and the plebs, that at the next election (275) Caeso, the 
accuser of Sp. Cassius, was the choice of the centuries, the 
patricians nominating T. Virginius. Without waiting for 
it to be urged by the tribunes, Caeso Fabius called on the 
senate to put the agrarian law into execution ; but he 
and his house were reviled ns traitors and apostates from 



THE FABII AT THE CREMERA. 75 

their former principles, and his proposals treated with scorn. 
The plebeians, gratified by his conduct, cheerfully took the 
field under him against the JEquians, and having invaded 
and ravaged their territory, hastened to the relief of the 
other consul, who had been defeated and was surrounded 
by the Veientines. 

The Fabian house, finding that there was no chance of 
inducing their order to act with justice towards the plebs, 
and that they were themselves become objects of aversion 
to their former friends, resolved to abandon Rome, and to 
form a separate settlement, where they might still be of 
service to their country. The place they fixed on was the 
banks of the Cremera, a stream in the Veientine territory. 
Led by the consul Caeso, to the number of three hundred 
and six, accompanied by their wives and children, and fol- 
lowed by a train of clients and friends, said to have amount- 
ed to four thousand, they issued on the ides of February 
through the Carmental gate,* attended by the prayers of 
the people ; and coming to the Cremera raised their fortress, 
whence they scoured without ceasing the whole Veientine 
territory, destroying the lands and carrying oflT the cattle. 
After some months the Veientines assembled a large army 
to assail the fortress of the Cremera ; but L. ^milius, one 
of the new consuls, (276,) led his troops against them, and 
gave them a defeat which was followed by a truce for a 
cyclic year. On the expiration of the truce the Fabii resumed 
hostilities. The Veientines, unable to cope with them in 
the field, had recourse to stratagem. They laid an ambush 
in the hills round a small plain, toward which they caused 
herds of cattle to be driven in view of the fortress. The 
Fabii instantly sallied forth, and while they were dispersed 
in pursuit of the oxen, the Tuscans came down on them from 
the woody hills, where they lay concealed, and surrounded 
them. The Fabii fought with desperation, and finally, 
breaking through the enemies, retired to the summit of 'a 
hill : but here they were again environed, and every one of 
them slain. Their fortress, deprived of its defenders, was 
taken and dismantled. 

Another account said that the Fabii had set out unarmed 
for Rome to perform the annual sacrifices of their gens on 
the Q,uirinal, The Veientines collected a large army, and 
lay in ambush on the way ; the Fabii, who were proceeding 

* In after times it was considered unlucky to go out at this gate. 

f 



76 HISTORY OF ROME. 

carelessly as in time of peace, were assailed on all sides by 
showers of missiles from their cowardly foes, and all fell 
with many wounds.* 

The 18th duinctilis (July) of the year 277 was the day 
of the fall of the Fabii, about two years and seven months 
from the time of their leaving Rome. That they were sac- 
rificed by the oligarchy at home is highly probable, for the 
consul T. Menenius was encamped but four miles off, and 
he made no effort whatever to aid them. His treachery or 
inaction, however, did not avail him ; the Tuscan army came 
and attacked and defeated him, and if they had not delayed 
to plunder the camp, they might have destroyed the whole 
Roman army. The fugitives filled the city with conster- 
nation, the fort on the Janiculan was abandoned, the Sub- 
lician bridge broken down, and word sent to the consul 
C. Horatius, who was out against the Volscians, to hasten 
to the defence of the city. 

The Etruscans, meantime, had encamped on the Janicu- 
I'an, whence they frequently passed over the river and rav- 
aged the country. The peasantry fled with their cattle 
into the city for safety, and famine now began to be felt. 
As was the usual practice in such cases, the cattle were 
driven, out under a guard, into the fields on the side of the 
city away from the river ; erelong the Etruscans crossed 
the Tiber, in the hope of being able to carry them oif ; 
but they fell into an ambush near the temple of Hope 
about a mile from the city, and received a severe check. 
Soon after their whole army crossed over in the night on 
rafts, and attacked the camp of the consul Servilius before 
the Colline gate, but they met with another repulse. The 
famine, however, was so urgent (for no supplies could be 
brought in) that it was of absolute necessity that something 
decisive should be done. Accordingly the two consular 
armies passed the river at different points; that of Ser- 
vilius assailed the Janiculan, but was repulsed, and would 
have been driven into the river, but that Virginius came up 
and fell on the flank and rear of the Tuscans; the other 
army then turned, and the enemy was finally defeated, and 
forced to abandon the Janiculan. A truce for ten months 

" The whole gens it is said perished, except a child that was left at 
Rome. But as this Fabius was consul ten years after, he must have 
been a man at the time. From his subsequent history it would appear 
that he had adhered to the old politics of the family, and on that ac- 
count did not share in the miffration. 



MURDER OF THE TRIBUNE GENUCIUS. If 

was then concluded. At its expiration (279) the consul 
P. Valerius defeated the Veientines and a Sabine army un- 
der the walls of Veil. The following year (280) a truce 
for forty years was concluded ; and it was probably at this 
time that the lands beyond the Tiber were restored to the 
Romans, and not by the romantic generosity of Porsenna. 

We must now take a view of the internal state of Rome 
durinof this time. 

As soon as the Veientines had retired in 278, the tribunes 
impeached T. Menenius for suifering the Fabii to be de- 
stroyed. As they merely wanted to have him declared 
guilty, they laid the penalty at only 2000 asses ; the curies 
condemned him, and grief and indignation at this desertion of 
him by his own order broke his heart, and he died. Servilius 
was next impeached for having caused the loss of so many 
lives by his attack on the Janiculan ; he defended himself 
with spirit, and, as was just, was acquitted. In the year 
after the peace (281) the tribune Cn. Genucius summoned 
the consuls of the preceding year, L. Furius and C. Manlius, 
to answer before the plebs for not having carried the agrarian 
law into effect. The tribune offered sacrifice before the 
people in the Forum, calling down curses on his head if he 
did not proceed ; the accused saw that the danger of their 
being outlawed, at the least, was imminent ; they had recourse 
to the lesser houses, now the most violent against the com- 
monalty, and it was decided at a secret meeting to do a 
deed which should strike terror into the hearts of the ple- 
beians. 

Early in the morning of the day fixed for the trial, the 
people were all assembled in the Forum, waiting for the 
appearance of Genucius. As he delayed, they began to 
suspect that he had been terrified into an abandonment of 
the prosecution ; but presently his friends, who had gone 
according to custom to attend him to the Forum, arrived 
and told that he had been found dead in -his bed, though 
without any marks of violence. His body was brought 
forth ; the tribunes and the people were filled with terror, 
and fled from the spot ; the patricians, exulting in their suc- 
cess, boasted openly of their deed ; and with the hope of 
being able to carry their plans into effect, the consuls or- 
dered a levy, that they might get the most offensive of their 
adversaries into their hands and put them to death. The 
tribunes feared to interfere, and had the consuls refrained 

from insult they might have succeeded. 

<^ * 



78 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Volero Publilius Philo, who had served as a first centurion, 
was called out as a common soldier. As no charge could be 
made against him, he refused to serve in an inferior station. 
The lictors were sent to seize him ; he appealed to the trib- 
unes ; the consuls ordered the lictors to strip and scourge 
him. Volero, a powerful man, flung them from him, and 
rushed among the people, calling on them to aid him. 
The lictors were beaten, their fasces broken, the consuls 
fled into the senate-house; the people, however, used their 
victory with moderation, and quiet was restored in part 
through the prudence of the senators of the greater houses. 

The next year (282) Volero was chosen one of the trib- 
unes ; and instead of avenging his private quarrel by im- 
peaching the consuls, he devoted his energies to the pro- 
curing of permanent advantages for his order. He brought 
in a bill to give the appointment of the tribunes to the tribes 
instead of the centuries, where the patricians exercised so 
much influence by means of their clients. As two of his 
colleagues supported him, and a majority was decisive at 
this time in the college of the tribunes, the patricians found 
themselves obliged to have recourse to other means of stop- 
ping the measure. 

A tribunician rogation resembled a bill in the British par- 
liament in this, that if not carried through all" its stages in 
the limited period, (in the latter case the session, in the 
former a single day,) it had to be commenced anew. The 
magistrates and senators had moreover the power of oppo- 
sing any motion of the tribunes which concerned the whole 
republic ; and thus, without any factious design, a debate 
might be prolonged to sunset. But the patricians had an- 
other mode of impeding the proceedings of the tribunes. 
They and their clients used to spread themselves over the 
Forum ; and when it was necessary that the ground should 
be cleared, and the plebeians left alone to vote in their tribes, 
and they were therefore requested to withdraw, (that is, to 
walk over to their Comitium, on the other side of the Rostra,) 
they would refuse ; this would cause a tumult, and so all 
proceedings would be stopped for the day. The military 
expeditions formed another impediment; for the clients, who 
were not required to serve, outnumbered the plebeians who 
remained at home. 

By means of this kind the bill of Publilios was defeated 
time after time till the end of his year. But the people re- 



ROGATION OF PUBLILIUS VOLERO. 79 

elected him, (283,) and gave him for a colleague C. Laetorms, 
a man of great energy and intrepidity. The patricians on 
their side raised the ferocious Ap. Claudius to the consulate ; 
the choice of the centuries was T. duinctius, a member of 
the greater houses, and a man of just and moderate senti- 
ments. 

The tribunes required that both the tribunes and the 
aediles should be chosen by the tribes ; they further proposed 
a resolution declaring that the plebs, in their tribes, were 
entitled to deliberate on matters affecting the whole state. 
This the patricians resolved to oppose to the utmost; the trib- 
unes on their side were as determined ; and on the eve of the 
important day Lastorius thus concluded his address to the 
people. " Since I am not so ready at speaking as at acting, 
be here to-morrow, Romans, and I will either die in your 
sight or carry the law.' In the morning the tribunes entered 
the Forum ; the consuls were also present ; the patricians 
mingled with the plebeians, to prevent the passing of the law. 
Lsetorius directed all to withdraw but those who were to 
vote : the patricians took no notice ; he ordered the officers 
(viatores) to seize some of them ; Appius, in an insulting 
manner, denied his right to do so ; the intrepid tribune 
in a rage sent his officer to arrest the consul ; Appius ordered 
a lictor to seize Lsetorius : the plebs hastened to the de- 
fence of the tribune, the patricians to that of the consul. 
Blood would have been shed but for the efforts of the con- 
sulars, who forced Appius away to the senate-house, and of 
Quinctius, who appeased the people ; they however went up 
and occupied the Capitol in arms. 

There can be no doubt that the plebs passed the resolu- 
tion before sunset. The senate, despite of the fury of Appius 
and his party, yielded to the suggestiorrs of the more mod- 
erate and prudent, and silently adopted it as a law ; though the 
more far-sighted saw that more was yielded by it than had 
been done at the Sacred Mount. Measures might now ori- 
ginate in the assembly of the tribes, where (not as in that of 
the centuries) there was freedom of debate ; these were to be 
followed by a decree of the senate, and then ratified by the 
curies. 

It may appear strange that the patricians (a part of whom 
had so lately been able to lord it over the rest of their own 
body, as well as the plebs) should be now so feeble. But 
their allies, the Latins and Hernicans, were at this time too 
hard pressed themselves to be able to give them any aid ; and 



80 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the preponderance which the lesser houses had acquired, had 
naturally excited jealousy in the older ones, and thus inclined 
them to the plebs. And doubtless there must have been 
among the patricians many men of liberal and elevated minds, 
who wished to see justice done ; there were others also con- 
nected by marriage with plebeian families. 

It being necessary to send armies against the Volscians 
and ^quians in defence of their allies, the tribunes did not 
oppose the levies, though an opportunity would be thereby 
afforded to Appius of exercising his fury and revenge. He 
led therefore an army against the Volscians, while Quinc- 
tius advanced against the ^Equians. It was a contest between 
Appius and his troops ; he sought to drive them to despair 
by invectives and by intolerable commands ; they resolved to 
show him that he could not bend them to his will. His 
orders were neglected, curses awaited him every time he 
appeared ; and when at length he led his troops out to battle, 
they made no resistance to the foe, but turned and fled. 
The Volscians pursued them, slaughtering the rearmost, to 
their camp, which however they did not venture to attack. 
The consul called his troops to an assembly; the soldiers 
fearing to go unarmed, as was the custom, refused to attend. 
His officers besought Appius, and he gave way, and issued 
orders for a retreat next day. At dawn the trumpet sounded ; 
the Volscians, aroused by the sound, came forth and fell on 
the retiring army ; a general panic seized the Romans, they 
flung away their arms and standards, and fled in confusion. 
On the Roman territory the consul held his court ; want of 
arms, and the consciousness of having acted wrong, en- 
feebled the soldiers, and the patricians and the allies were 
at hand to assail them if they mutinied. At the command 
of Appius, every centurion who had left his place, and 
every tenth common soldier, was seized, scourged, and be- 
headed. 

The following year (284) Jhe tribunes impeached Appius 
Claudius for his opposition to the interests of the people, his 
having laid violent hands on a tribune, and having caused 
loss and disgrace to his army. Appius disdained to use any 
of the usual modes of obtaining favor; he would not put on 
a mean dress, or personally supplicate those \yho were to try 
him ; his language breathed, as ever, haughtiness and de- 
fiance ; the people quailed before him ; the tribunes put off* 
the day of trial. But ere the day arrived, the haughty Ap- 
pius was no more ; his own hand had terminated his exist- 



VOLSCIAN WAR. Si 

ence. The deed, which the Roman religion condemned, 
was concealed ; his body was, according to custom, brought 
forth for interment : his son claimed to have the usual 
funeral oration pronounced over it ; the tribunes attempted 
opposition, but the people would not carry their enmity be- 
yond the tomb, and listened calmly to his praises, now that 
he had ceased from troublinor. 



CHAPTER III. 

VOLSCIAN WAR. LEGEND OF CORIOLANUS. THE TERENTIL- 

IAN LAW. SEIZURE OF THE CAPITOL BY THE EXILES. 

DICTATORSHIP OF CINCINNATUS. THE FIRST DECEMVI- 

RATE. THE SECOND DECEMVIRATE. SICINIUS DENTATUS. 

FATE OF VIRGINIA. ABOLITION OF THE DECEMVIRATE. 

The Volscians, the ^quians, and the Sabines were now 
the constant opponents of the Romans, the Latins, and the 
Hernicans. In 284 nothing of importance occurred ; but 
the next year, while the disputes were warm at Rome on 
account of the agrarian laws, the flight of the peasantry 
and the smoke of the burning farm-houses announced the 
approach of a Volscian army. Troops were hastily levied, 
the enemy retired, but was overtaken and routed near An- 
tium, and the neighboring seaport of Ceno came .over to 
the Romans. The Sabines, v»/ho had meantime entered the 
Roman territory, were attacked and driven off with loss by 
the consular armies on their return. 

The next year (286) the Sabines extended their ravages 
over the Anio, and to the very Colline gate; but the consul 
d. Servilius obliged them to retire, and wasted their terri- 
tory in return. The other consul, T. duinctius, had march- 
ed against the Volscians of Antium. After an indecisive 
battle, the Volscians, being joined by an JEquian army, sur- 
rounded the Roman camp in the night to prevent a retreat. 
The consul, having calmed the apprehensions of his men, 
set the trumpeters and horn-blowers on horseback out before 
the rampart, ordering them to sound all through the night. 
The enemy, expecting a sally, remained under arms while 
the Romans took their rest. At dawn the consul led out his 

K 



82 HISTORY OF ROME. 

army ; the Volscians, exhausted with watching, retired after 
a feeble resistance to the summit of a rugged hill; the 
Romans, heedless of the missiles which were showered down 
on them, won their way up to the top, and the Volscians fled 
down the other side. The Volscian colonists at Antium then 
agreed to evacuate the town, and their place was taken by one 
thousand colonists from the three allied peoples.* 

For some years (286 — 290) there was a cessation of hos- 
tilities between the Romans and the Volscians ; but the 
^quians were still in arms, the expelled colonists of An- 
tium and their exiled partisans fighting with the utmost zeal 
under their banners. In 289 the ^^Equians advanced as far 
as Mount Algidus,t where they pitched their camp. The 
consul Cluinctius came and encamped opposite them; but 
they made a sudden irruption into the Roman territory ; the 
country folk, who expected no such event, had not time to 
convey their property to the city, or to the strong pagi,^ and 
the invaders carried oif a large booty. 

The next year (290) the Volscians of Eretrae joined the 
JEquians. At the urgent desire of the Hernicans, the con- 
sul Sp. Furius was sent with an army to their defence; but 
he was unable to oppose the superior forces of the enemy, 
and was even so closely cooped up by them in his camp, 
that it was only through the Hernicans that his situation 
could be made known at Rome. T. Cluinctius was sent 
with an army to his relief; but Furius had meantime been 
himself wounded, and his brother with one thousand of the 
best men slain in a sally. Q,uinctius relieved the army of 
Furius, but the other consul Postumius had been unable to 
prevent the enemy from ravaging the lands of Rome; the 
peasantry fled with their cattle into the city ; the heat of the 
summer, joined with the want of pasture, caused a murrain 
among the cattle, which was followed by a dreadful pestilence 
among the people. The Volscians and JEquians came and 
encamped within three miles of Rome on the road to Gabii ; 
the country round, filled with ruins and the unburied dead, 
oifered nothing to plunder ; fear of the pestilence, or of the 
resistance the people might still make, withheld them from 

* See above, p. 67, note. 

t A thickly wooded range of hills lying between Tusculum and Ve- 
litrae. 

t A pagus was a place on an eminence surrounded by a wall or 
ditch and rampart for the people to retreat to on such occasions as the 
present. 



^ LEGEND OF CORIOLANUS. 83 

attacking the city. They broke up at length, and proceeded 
to ravage all parts of Latium. The spreading of the pestilence 
probably caused a cessation- of hostilities after this, which 
was followed by a truce ; and in 295 the Romans, to dissolve 
the league which they found too strong for them, concluded 
a separate peace with the Volscians, giving up Antium and 
other towns, and entering into a municipal relation * with 
them. An advantage derived by Rome from this war, dis- 
astrous as it was, was the utter ruin and breaking-up of the 
Latin union, several of whose towns were obliged to place 
themselves in a state of dependence under her. 

It is in this war that the celebrated legend of Coriolanus, 
which has been thrown back to the year 263, probably finds 
its true place. 

Cn. Marcius, a gallant patrician youth, said the legend, 
was serving in the army which P. Cominius led in 261 
against the Volscians of Antium. The Volscians were de- 
feated, the towns of Longula and Polusca taken, and siege 
laid to Corioli. During a vigorous assault of the town, the 
Volscian army came from Antium, and fell on the Romans ; 
the besieged at the same time made a sally, but they were 
driven back by a party headed by Marcius, who, entering 
the town pellmell with them, set fire to the buildings next 
the wall ; the Volscians, seeing the smoke and flames, 
thought that the town was taken, and retired. Corioli was 
thus taken, and Marcius derived from it the name of Corio- 
lanus. This and other exploits made him the darling of 
his order ; but the plebs dreaded him, and refused him the 
consulate. 

The next year Rome was visited by a grievous famine. 
Corn was sought in all quarters, even as far as Sicily, whence 
(263) there came a large supply, part purchased, part the 
gift of a Greek prince of the island. It was proposed in 
the senate to distribute the gift-corn gratis among the peo- 
ple, and to sell the remainder at a low price ; but Marcius 
said that now was the time to make them abolish the odious 
tribunate, and advised not to give them the corn on any 
other terms. When the people heard what he had proposed, 
they became furious, and would have torn him to pieces, 
but that the tribunes summoned him to appear before the 
assembly of the tribes. He treated their menaces with 

* The municipium answered to the isopolity of the Greeks ; it con- 
ferred all civic rights but those of voting in the assemblies or holding 
office. 



84 HISTORY OF ROME. 

contempt, and abated nought of his haughtiness ; but the 
other patricians supplicated for him. His condemnation 
however was certain ; so he quitted Rome, and went into 
exile * to Antiurn, where he became the guest of Attius 
Tullius. He offered the Volscians his services against his 
country ; they in return gave him the highest civil rights ; 
and when Tullius had rekindled the war as above related, t 
Marcius was appointed to be his colleague. 

Success every where attended the arms of the exile. He 
took the colony of Circeii ; Satricum, Longula, Polusca, and 
Corioli submitted ; Lavinium, Corbio, Vitellia, Trebia, La- 
vici and Pedum opened their gates ; he pitched his camp at 
the Cluilian Ditch, five miles from Ilome,f whence he 
ravaged the lands of the plebeians, sparing those of his own 
order. 

Fear and consternation reigned in the city, and resistance 
was not thought of; the senate, the curies, and the plebs 
united in a decree restoring Marcius to his civic rights. 
Five consulars bore it to him ; but he insisted that all the 
territory taken from the Volscians should be restored, the 
colonies recalled, and the Volscian people received into a 
municipal relation. He gave them thirty days to consider, 
and led off his troops for that time. When they were ended, 
the Ten First of the senate waited on him; he gave them 
three days more, driving them from his camp with threats. 
Next day the flamens, the augurs, and the other ministers 
of religion came in their sacred robes to try to move him, 
but they too sued in vain. And now the third day was 
come, and were its sun to go down on his wrath, he was 
to lead his troops against the defenceless city. But again 
Rome owed her safety to her women. A procession of her 
noblest matrons, headed by the exile's venerable mother 
Veturia and his wife Volumnia leading her two young chil- 
dren, was seen to approach the Volscian camp. They en- 
tered and came to his tent ; the tears of his wife and the 
other matrons, the threatened curse of his aged parent, bent 

* Banishment was unknown to the Roman law during the Republic. 
An exul, that is, one loho is out, (see above, p. 58,) a fuoruscito, was 
a person who left his native city to reside in one with which it had a 
municipal relation. Hhe jus exulandi might be used by any accused 
person up to the moment of the very last tribe voting his condemna- 
tion. He was then no longer a Roman citizen, and the interdiction of 
fire and water prevented his return. 

f See p. 67. 

t The patrician lands lay within side of it. See above, p. 69, 7wte, 



LEGEND OF CORIOLANUS. 85 

his haughty soul. He burst into tears : " Mother, " cried he, 
*' thou hast chosen between Rome and thy son ; me thou 
wilt never see more : may they requite thee ! " He embraced 
his wife and children, and dismissed them, and next morn- 
ing he led off his army. He lived among the Volscians to a 
great age, and often was heard to say that exile was most 
grievous to an old man ; * when he died, the Roman matrons 
mourned a year as they had done for Brutus and Poplicola ; 
and his praises, as those of a pious and upright man, were 
handed down to posterity. 

We have called this tale a legend, and said that it is in 
its wrong place. The following are a few of the reasons 
for our so doing. There was no famine at Rome in 262 ; 
there was no prince, that is, tyrant, in Sicily at that time; 
the tribunes had not the power here ascribed to them till 
after the year 280; the practice of naming persons from 
conquests they had made began with Scipio Africanus. t 
On the other hand, there was a famine in 278, at which time 
Hiero was reigning at Syracuse ; and soon after there was 
a violent dissension between the orders, when the proposal 
ascribed to Cn. Marcius may have been made, and the plebs 
were then strong enough to punish any one who attempted 
to do away with any of the fundamental laws of the state. 
Finally, the conquests ascribed to Coriolanus are mostly the 
cessions made to the Volscians at the peace of 295. 

Yet the story of Coriolanus is no mere fable. It is probable 
that he was at the head of a body of Roman exiles,! serving 
in the Volscian army in hopes of reentering Rome as victors, 
and that he demanded their recall as well as his own. But as 
these would have reclaimed their property and have sought 
vengeance of their enemies, nothing could have been more 
dreaded by all parties than their return. If then Coriolanus, 
to save his country from this affliction, consented never to see 
it more, and return to exile when he might have entered 
Rome as a conqueror, he was every way worthy of the fame 
he "acquired, and his name should ever be held in honorable 
remembrance as that of a true patriot. 

* Fabius in Liv. ii. 40. Some said he was assassinated by the 
Volscians ; others, (Cicero, Brutus 10,) that he put an end to himself 
like Themistocles. 

t Liv. XXX. 45. 

X The (fvyaSsq of the Greeks (see History of Greece, Vdciill. passim) 
the fuorusciti of the republics of middle age Italy. The above is only 
Niebuhr's hypothesis, but it is so extremely probable that it is difficult 
not to embrace it. — 



86 HISTORY OF ROME. 

We now return to the internal history. The pestilence 
of 291 had committed dreadful ravages ; it had carried off 
the two consuls, three of the tribunes and a fourth of the 
senate, and, as is always the case, had produced great dis- 
soluteness of manners. The patricians, as being a close 
body, suffered more loss of political strength than the ple- 
beians ; many of their houses seem to have died off, whose 
clientry mostly joined the plebs. Internal and external calam- 
ities combined to make men aware of the defects of the exist- 
ing institutions, and to induce them to favor a constitutional 
reform. 

In the year 292 the tribune C. Terentilius Arsa took the 
opportunity of the absence of the consuls and the legions 
to propose a bill of reform, of which the object was three- 
fold; to unite the two orders, and place them on a footing 
of equality; to substitute a limited magistracy for the con- 
sulate ; to frame a code of laws for all classes of Romans 
without distinction. This bill was passed by the plebs on 
the return of the consul Lucretius, but it was rejected by 
the senate and the curies. 

The next year (293) the Terentilian law was brought 
forward by the whole college of the tribunes. The consuls 
to impede them commenced a levy ; the tribunes resisted 
it; the patricians and their clients on their side prevented 
by their usual manoeuvres* the voting of the tribes. They 
were headed in these attempts by Caeso Quinctius, a young 
man of great bodily size and strength, equally distinguished 
by valor and eloquence, and they frequently beat the ple- 
beians and drove them off the Forum. At length A. Vir- 
ginius, one of the tribunes, impeached Cseso under the 
Icilian law. The patricians now awoke from their dream 
and saw their danger, the leading men among them de- 
scended to the humblest entreaties to save their champion, 
but all was in vain. To augment the odium against him, 
M. Volscius Fictor, a former tribune, came forward and de- 
clared that in the time of the plague as he and his brother, 
a man in years, and but just recovering from it, were pass- 
ing through the Subura they met a party of riotous youths 
headed by Caeso, who picked a quarrel with them ; his broth- 
er was knocked down by Cseso, and he died shortly after of 
the blow; he had himself applied to no purpose for justice to 
the consuls of the year. This tale roused the people to 
fury, and it was with difficulty that the tribunes could save 
the accused frbm them. Caeso, who had given ten sureties, 

* See above, p. 78, 



SEIZURE OF THE CAPITOL BY THE EXILES. 87 

(each bound in 3000 asses,) seeing his condemnation certain, 
retired secretly that very night into Etruria, and his sureties 
had to pay the money to the temple of Ceres.* 

The elder houses began now to think that resistance was 
useless, and they were anxious for an accommodation : not 
so the juniors ; they were more imbittered than ever, but 
they adopted a new system of tactics. On court days they 
and their clients occupied the Forum and impeded the meas- 
ures of the tribunes in the usual way, taking care that no 
one should make himself conspicuous ; on other days they 
vied with each other in kindness and courtesy toward the 
individual plebeians. The tribunes, however, saw or affected 
to see a conspiracy against themselves and their order, and 
in the next year (294) a report was spread that Ceeso had 
been in the city, and that a plan was laid for murdering 
them and the leading plebeians, and bringing back the re- 
public to what it had been before the secession. While the 
minds of the people were thus kept in a state of uncertainty, 
cries of To Arms ! and The enemies are in the city ! were heard 
one night, raised by persons who were flying for their lives 
down from the Capitol to the Forum, and averring that the 
citadel was seized by a body of men who were putting to 
death all who would not join them. Terror prevailed all 
through the night, and guards were placed on the Aventine 
and Esquiline, and the streets leading to them. 

The morning revealed the truth. A body of exiles and 
runaway slaves with the clients of Appius Herdonius, a 
powerful Sabine who had placed himself at their head, had 
come down the river by night in boats, and entering the city 
by the Carmental gate, (which, from a religious motive, was 
never closed,) had mounted to the Capitol, that was at hand, 
and made themselves masters of it. At ^awn Herdonius 
called aloud on the slaves, but in vain, to rise for their 
liberty ; the consuls, on their side, having secured the gates 
and walls against an attack from without, w^hich they ap- 
prehended, wished to assail the Capitol at once, and began 
to administer the military oath. But the tribunes, who 
maintained that the whole was only a device of the patri- 
cians, and that those on the Capitol were nothing but their 
friends and clients, opposed the levy, saying that now was 

* " The money," says Livy, '•' was cruelly exacted from his father." 
If so, it must have been by the sureties ; but this is a mere fiction to 
account for the narrow circumstances in which we shall find Cincin- , 
n^tus. 



88 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the time to pass the bill, while the plebs were under arms 
and that then those above would go off as quietly as they 
came. In this confusion the consul P. Valerius saved his 
country ; he implored the people to consider the danger if 
their enemies were to learn that the Capitol was occupied, 
and he pledged himself that when the danger was over no 
hinderance should be given to the voting of the assembly, 
and that if the bill was passed it should be made law. 

The word of a Valerius sufficed ; the plebeians took the 
oath, but the day was far spent, and the assault had to be 
deferred to the morrow. In the morning, being joined by 
the Tusculans, whom their dictator L. Mamilius had brought 
to their aid, they began to ascend. The outlaws fought 
with desperation, but they were driven back; a part of them 
defended the temple, and the consul Valerius, who led the 
attack, was slain in forcing the vestibule. At length all 
were killed or taken. Herdonius, and most probably Caeso 
Cluinctius,* was among the slain; all the prisoners were 
executed. The plebs assessed themselves to defray the ex- 
penses of a solemn funeral for the patriotic consul. 

The tribunes now called on C. Claudius, the remaining 
consul, to perform the promise of his deceased colleague ; 
but he refused to act by him.self, and the senate and curies 
made L. Q,uinctius Cincinnatus, the father of Caeso, consul, 
who breathing vengeance against the plebeians, resolved to 
take advantage of the military oath they had taken to Va- 
lerius, and leading them away from Rome force them to 
pass what laws the senate pleased. He ordered them to re- 
pair in arms to the lake Regillus, whither the augurs were 
sent to consecrate a field for the comitia.. But the courage 
of the patricians again failed them; the measure was aban- 
doned, on condition of the law not being agitated that year ; 
they tried also,, but to no purpose, to prevent the reelection 
of the tribunes, and they were obliged to give up an attempt 
at making Cincinnatus consul for the ensuing ^ear. 

The following year (295) was that of the peace with the 
Volscians. The ^quians were still in arms, and in 296 
the consul Minucius was defeated by them and besieged in 
his camp on Mount Algidus. An army sent from Rome 
relieved him ; but as he had lost the battle through his own 
fault, he was obliged to resign the command to Q,. Fabius. 
This event was transmitted in the poetic legendary form, 

* Two years after (Livy iii. 25) he is spoken of in a manner which 
shows that he was not living. 



DICJATORSHIP OF CINCINNATUS. 89 

and being associated with a celebrated name, it has come 
down to us in the following manner. 

The .c^quians, who had been parties to the peace of the 
preceding year, now broke out, and led by Gracchus Cloelius 
ravaged the lands of Latium. They encamped with their 
booty on Mount Algidus, whither Roman ambassadors came 
to complain of this breach of faith. The ^quian general 
insolently desired them to make their complaint to the oak 
beneath whose capacious shade he was seated. The Ro- 
mans took the oak and the gods to witness of the justice of 
their cause, and departed. The consul Minucius led his 
army to the Algidus; but fortune favored the misdoers, and 
he was shut up by them, with a rampart raised round his 
camp. Five horsemen who escaped ere the enemy's lines 
were completed, brought the tidings to Rome ; it was resolved 
to create a dictator; the choice fell on L. duinctius Cincin- 
natus, who was living on a small farm of four jugers in the 
Vatican land beyond the Tiber. The officer (viator) sent to 
inform him of his appointrfient * found him guiding his plough 
with nothing on but an apron, t it being summer time ; he 
bade him clothe himself to hear the message of the senate 
and the Fathers. Cincinatus called to his wife Racilia to 
fetch him his toga out of the cottage. When he was dressed, 
the officer saluted him as dictator ; a boat lay ready to convey 
him across the river ; at the other side he was received by 
his three sons and several of his friends and kinsmen and a 
number of the patricians, and was conducted by them to his 
house. 

Before dawn next morning he entered the Forum, and 
having appointed L. Tarquitius, a man brave but poor, to be 
master of the horse, he ordered all the shops to be closed, all 
business to be suspended,! and every one able to serve to 
appear by sunset without the city, with food dressed for five 
days, and with twelve palisades. While those who were to 
march were cutting their pales and preparing their arms, 
those who were to remain dressed the victuals for them. At 
night-fall, all being ready, the dictator set forth at their head, 
and at midnight they had reached the Algidus, where they 
halted near the camp of the enemy. The dictator, havmg 
ridden forward to take a view of it, directed his officers to 
make the men lay down their baggage, and with their arms 

* Pliny, H. N. xviii. 4. / 

t Nadus ara, sere nudns, Virg. Geor. i. 299. 
I This was called a Jiistitium. 

ft* T 



90^ HISTORY OF ROME. 

and palisades alone to resume their order of march, and 
having surrounded the enemy to raise a loud shout and begin 
to cast up a ditch and rampart. His orders were obeyed ; 
the shout pealed over the camp of the yEquians to that of the 
Romans, filling those with terror, these with joy and hope. 
The besieged burst forth from their camp, and fought with 
the JEquians till the dawn. Meantime the dictator's army 
had completed their works, and the JEquians, thus shut in, 
and now assailed from within and without, sued for mercy. 
The terms granted were the surrender of Cloelius and the 
principal officers, and of their town of Corbio with all 
the property in it; the rest, having passed under the yoke, 
might then depart unarmed. Clcslius and his officers were 
then laid in chains; an opening was made in the Roman 
line ; two spears upright and one across (the jugum, or yoke) 
were set up in it, under which the yEquian soldiers, with 
nothing on but their tunics, marched out, their camp and all 
in it remaining in the hands of the victors. The spoil was 
divided among the liberating army ; the liberated called the 
dictator their patron, and gave him a golden crown of a pound 
in weight. He entered the city in triumph ; tables were 
spread with provisions before all the doors as the soldiers 
passed, and joy and festivity every where prevailed. The 
dictator at the end of sixteen days laid down his office, and 
declining all the gifts that were offered him returned to his 
farm. 

Pity that so pleasing a legend will not pass the ordeal of 
criticism ! Five palisades being counted a heavy load for a 
soldier used to duty, how could men called out on a sudden 
levy carry * twelve ? and how could they march thus laden 
twenty miles from sunset to midnight ? Each soldier, to use 
so many, must have had a fathom of ground to intrench, and 
would the ^quians make no effort to break through so thin 
a line ? The manner in which Cincinatus learned his ele- 
vation to the dictatorship is also told of his consulate, and 
twenty years after Cloelius is taken just in the same way near 
Ardea ; the giving up of Corbia is a pure invention of the 
annalists; and finally, the ^quians were not included in the 
peace of 295, and so could not have been guilty of perjury. 
But the dictatorship of Cincinatus appears in reality to have 
had a much less noble origin. In 295 the quaestors, A. 
Cornelius and Q,. Servilius, accused M. Volscius before the 
curies,* for having by perjury caused the ruin of one of their 

* See above, p. 62. 



DICTATORSHIP OF CINCINNATUS. ^ PI 

order ; the tribunes, however, prevented the patricians from 
going on with the trial, and nothing could be done in that 
year. Next year the tribunician power had to give way 
before that of the dictator, and Cincinnatus had the satisfac- 
tion of seeincr the accuser of his son driven into exile. He 
then laid down his office, and retired to his farm. 

Under the mild and equitable form of government which we 
enjoy, it is difficult for us to conceive the bitter, ruthless spirit 
which animated the oligarchies and democracies of antiquity. 
On the present occasion, the patricians scrupled at no means 
of offence ; they not only impeded the assemblies of the 
plebeians, but they caused the most active and daring of them 
to be assassinated.* But all would not avail ; the same trib- 
unes were reelected every year, and in 297 their number 
was increased to ten, two from each of the classes; and the 
next year the senate and curies were obliged to confirm a law, 
proposed by the tribune Icilius, for assigning the whole of the 
Aventine to the plebeians. At length, (300,) the patricians 
gave way on the subject of the Terentilian law, and agreed 
to a revision of the laws ; and three senators were sent to 
Athens, then flourishing under Pericles, to gain a knowledge 
of its laws and constitution. 

In the year 301 Rome was again visited by the pestilence, 
and one of the consuls, his successor, four tribunes, an au- 
gur, one of the three great flamens, many senators, half the 
freemen, and all the slaves are said to have died of it. It 
fell with equal fury on the Volscians, .^quians, Sabines, and 
other peoples of Italy, t 

At length (302) the plague ceased, and the envoys having 
returned from Greece, a board of ten patricians, one half to 
be elected by the centuries, (the plebeians having given up 
their original demand of a share in it,|) was appointed to 
draw up and enact a general code of laws. As in cases of 
this kind in antiquity the lawgivers were intrusted with all 
the powers of the state, § the consulate and the other magis- 
tracies were all merged in the decemvirate, and the decem- 
virs were thus invested with nearly absolute power. Being 

* Dion Exc. de sent. 22., and Zonoras, vii. 17. 

t It was probably connected with the plague at Athens, which broke 
out some years after, and with the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions 
which prevailed at this time. 

t Terentilius had required that of the ten commissioners to be ap- 
pointed, five should be plebeians. 

§ As in the case of Solon and the Thirty at Athens. See History 
of Greece. 



92 HISTORY OF ROME. 

in effect a decury of interrexes, they exercised the supr»«tne 
power by turns : he who held it was named Gustos Urhis ; 
he was attended by the twelve lictors, and presided over the 
senate and the whole republic ; his colleagues acted as judges, 
each being attended by a beadle, [Accensus.) 

It was not the desire of the Romans to have an entirely 
new constitution ; a selection was to be made out of their 
existing laws and usages, with such improvements as might 
be derived from those of other nations. The decemvirs ap- 
plied themselves sedulously to their task, and having drawn 
up a code in ten laws or tables, they made them public, in 
order to receive such suggestions as might be offered for their 
improvement. After some time they laid the amended code 
before the senate, and, on their approval, before the centuries, 
whose assent was solemnly ratified by the (furies. The laws 
were then cut on tables of brass, and hung up in the Comi- 
tium. 

By this celebrated code the two orders were placed on an 
equality, as far as was possible at the time. The patricians, 
with their clients and the serarians, were admitted into the 
plebeian tribes, and all thus united in one civic body, in 
which the patricians were to form a numerous nobility. 
The supreme power was to be annually confided, not to con- 
suls, but to a board of ten civil and military officers, one 
half of whom were to be plebeians. Among the patricians 
the old distinction of greater and lesser houses seems to 
have been done away with, for we find soon after the votes 
taken in the senate without any certain order. * 

The law of debt enacted or retained was rigorous in the 
extreme. In case of a nexnm, the creditor could arrest his 
debtor after thirty days, and if he did not discharge his debt 
or give security, he might take him home and put him in 
irons, which at the most were to weigh fifteen pounds ; if 
he could not supply himself with food, his creditor was to 
allow him a pound of corn a day. If after sixty days no 
arrangement had been made, the debtor was brought before 
the praetor on three successive market-days, and the amount 
of his debt proclaimed, and if no one came forward to pay 
or secure it, the creditor was authorized to kill him or sell 
him beyond the Tiber. If there were several creditors, they 
might divide his body among them, and no one could be 
punished for cutting off more or less than his exact share, t 

* Dionys. xi. 16. See above, p. 70. 

t Gellius XX. 1. Si plus viinusve secuerunt se fraude esto. This 



THE FIRST DECEMVIRATE. 93 

When the tune for creating the new magistrates came, 
the patricians, doubtless with a design of enfeebling, if not 
overthrowing, the new constitution, sought to have L. Cin- 
cinnatus, T. Q,uinctius, and C. Claudius elected. But Ap- 
pius Claudius the decemvir, who, from the moment the re- 
form was resolved on, had courted the people, and had now 
completely won their confidence, was determined to retain 
the power he had acquired. His colleagues, to impede him, 
chose him to preside at the election, thinking he would 
not have the hardihood to put himself in nomination. But 
they were deceived; he did so, and was elected with four 
patrician and five plebeian colleagues. 

On the ides of May, (304,) the day they were to enter on 
their office, the decemvirs, to the amazement of the people, 
came forth, each preceded by twelve lictors with the axes 
in their fasces. Appius, by his force of character, gained 
a commanding influence in the college : the government was 
despotic, but during this year not unjust; no assemblies 
were held ; the senate had little or nothing to do, and most 
of the senators retired to their farms ; externally, there was 
peace. Toward the end of the year the decemvirs pro- 
mulgated two new tables of laws, making the whole num- 
ber twelve, and these, under the name of the Twelve Tables, 
became the source and foundation of the future Roman 
law. The decemvirs, like most men when possessed of 
uncontrolled power, soon began to abuse it. They at first 
oppressed both orders alike, but they speedily tyrannized 
almost exclusively over the plebs, now divested of the pro- 
tection of the tribunate. In this they were supported by 
the patrician youth, who were eager to gratify their feelings 
of hatred against the people. 

In the second year of the decemvirate (305) the JEquians 
and Sabines renewed hostilities ; the former encamped as 
usual on the Algidus, the latter at Eretum, The decemvirs 
convened the senate to give orders for the levies ; when it 
met, L. Valerius and M. Horatius, the grandsons of the 
liberators, boldly but to no purpose inveighed against their 
tyranny. The senate did as they required ; the plebeians 
having nowhere to appeal to, gave their names though 
with reluctance, and two armies were formed and led by 

proves that it could not have been a sectio bonorum, as some humane 
critics suppose. Shy lock would have fbund no diffijulty here. The 
real object of the law was to conquer the avarice and the stubborn 
obstinacy of the Roman character. 



94 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the military decemvirs against the enemies. But each army 
let itself be beaten ; the one on Algidus even abandoned its 
camp and sought refuge at Tusculum, the other fled by 
night from near Eretum and encamped on an eminence be- 
tween Fidenge and Crustumeria. 

In this army there was a distinguished veteran named 
L. Sicinius Dentatus, formerly a tribune of the people. It is 
said * that he had fought in one hundred and twenty battles, 
had forty-five scars in front, had gained spears, horse-trap- 
pings, and other rewards of valor without number, and had 
attended the triumphs of nine generals under whom he had 
served. This man awaked in the army the remembrance 
of the adjacent Sacred Mount, where, forty-five years before 
the people had gained their charter, and chid them for not 
imitating their gallant fathers. The generals, being resolved 
to put him out of the way, sent him with a party to choose 
a spot for encampment, giving orders to those under him, 
who were their own creatures, to fall on and slay him. These 
executed their mandate ; in a lonely spot they assailed the 
veteran hero, who, placing his back against a rock, perished 
not unavenged, for fifteen were slain and double the num- 
ber wounded by his hand. The rest fled back to the camp, 
crying out how they had fallen into an ambush of the enemy, 
who had slain their leader and several of their comrades. 
A party was sent to bury the slain ; but they could perceive 
no traces of an enemy ; the body of Sicinius lay unspoiled 
in his armor ; all the slain were Romans, and were turned 
toward him, and consequently must have fallen by his 
hand ; that he perished by the treachery of the decemvirs 
therefore was evident. The soldiers were incensed, but a 
splendid military funeral given to Sicinius by the generals 
pacified them in some measure. 

But a more atrocious deed was done in the city. Appius 
Claudius, as he sat in the Forum to administer justice, was 
in the habit of seeing a lovely and modest plebeian maiden 
go daily, attended by her nurse, to one of the schools which 
were held about' it, to learn the art of writing. She was 
named Virginia, and was the daughter of L. Virginius, one 
of the noblest plebeians, and betrothed to L. Icilius, who 
had been tribune. The decemvir cast an eye of lust on 
the innocent maiden ; he vainly tried the effect of promises 
and bribes : difficulty only augmented his passion, and he 
scrupled at no means to gratify it. He therefore directed 

* Pliny, H. N. vii. 28. 



FATE OF VIRGINIA. 95 

M. Claudius, one of his clients, to claim her as his slave : his 
orders were obeyed ; and as Virginia was crossing the Forum 
on her way to the school, Claudius laid hold on her as his 
property. At the loud cries of her nurse a crowd collected 
to oppose him ; Claudius coolly said he needed not force, as 
his claim was a legal one. All went before the tribunal of 
Appius, who was sitting in the Comitium. The plaintiff, as 
had been agreed on, averred that she was the offspring of 
one of his female slaves, who had given her to the childless 
wife of Virginius, and he now claimed her as his slave. The 
friends of Virginia prayed that as her father was absent on 
the affairs of the state, being a centurion in the army on 
the Algidus, a delay of two days might be given, and that 
meantime, by the decemvir's own law, security should be 
taken for her appearance. Appius, pretending that his law 
did not apply to the present case, decided that she should 
be delivered up to the claimant, on his giving security to 
produce her when required. A cry of horror was raised at 
this iniquitous sentence, and P. Numitorius and L. Icilius, 
the uncle and the lover of the maiden, came forward and 
spoke with such firmness, and the people seemed so deter- 
mined, that Appius gave way and deferred the decision of 
the matter till the following day, leaving Virginia meantime 
in the hands of her friends. 

It was the design of the tyrant to send off to his colleagues 
in the camp, directing them to confine Virginius, and to 
surround himself next day with a strong body of his parti- 
sans and their clients, and carry his point by violence if 
needful. To conceal his share in the present transaction, 
he sat some time longer in court ; and Icilius, and his 
friends, who having seen through his design had secretly 
directed two active young men to mount and ride off with 
all speed to the camp, purposely wore away the time in 
arranging the securities. Their messengers therefore ar- 
rived long before the one sent by Appius ; and Virginius, 
pretending the death of a relative, obtained leave of absence 
and came to Rome. 

At daybreak the Forum was full of people ; Virginius and 
his daughter in the garb of woe came among them imploring 
their aid : Icilius also addressed them : the women who were 
with them wept in silence. Appius came forth attended by 
an armed train and took his seat : the plaintiff, as instruct- 
ed, gently reproached him with not having done him justice 
the day before. Appius, without listening to him or Vir- 



96 HISTORY OF ROME. 

ginius, gave sentence that Virginia should be consigned to 
the claimant till a judge should decide the matter. This 
horrible decree filled all with silent amazement. M. Clau- 
dius advanced to lay hold on the maiden ; the vv^omen 
and their friends repelled him. Virginius menaced the de- 
cemvir : Appius declared that he knew there was a con- 
spiracy to resist the government, but that he would put it 
down by force ; then, " Go, lictor ! " he thundered forth, " dis- 
perse the crowd, and make way for the master to take his 
slave." The people fell back ; Virginius, seeing no hope, 
apologized for his vehemence, and craved permission to 
take his daughter and her nurse aside and examine them 
about the matter. Leave was granted ,-• he drew them near 
a butcher's stall, and snatching up a knife plunged it into 
his daughter's bosom. Then waving the reeking blade, 
" With this blood," he cried, " Appius, I devote thee and 
thy head." The tyrant called out to seize him : but, bran- 
dishing the knife, he reached the gate, no one daring to stop 
him, and proceeded to the camp, followed by a number of 
the people. 

Icilius and Numitorius harangued the people over the 
corpse of the hapless maiden ; Valerius and Horatius joined 
in the call to freedom ; the lictors were repelled, and their 
fasces broken. Appius vainly called on the patricians to 
stand by him ; then in terror for his life he covered his head, 
and fled into an adjacent house. His obsequious colleague 
Sp. Oppius, seeing that force would not avail, convened the 
senate, but it came to no decision. Some zealous patricians 
were however sent to the camp to try and keep the army 
in its duty. 

But vain were the hopes of the oligarchs ; the soldiers, at 
the call of Virginius, plucked up their standards, marched 
for Rome, and posted themselves on the Aventine. The 
senate sent three deputies, charging them with rebellion, 
and offering pardon to all but the ringleaders on their return 
to their duty. They were told to send Valerius and Horatius 
if they desired an answer. These, on being required to go, 
insisted that the decemvirs should previously abdicate ; this 
the patricians, still relying on their strength, refused to al- 
low. Meantime M. Duilius, a former tribune, convinced the 
people that as long as they staid in Rome the patricians 
v^^ould never believe they were in earnest ; but that if, like 
their fathers, they retired to the Sacred Mount, they would 
soon bring them to reason. Instantly the army was in mo- 



ABOLITION OF THE DECEMVIRATE. 91 

tion ; leaving a sufficient number to guard the Aventine, they 
marched unmolested across the city, out by the Colline gate, 
and, followed by numbers of men, women, and children from 
the Esquiline and other parts, they encamped on the Sacred 
Mount. Here they were joined by the other army, who 
had revolted at the call of Icilius and Numitorius. They 
acknowledged twenty tribunes, one for each tribe, as their 
magistrates, at the head of whom were M. Oppius and Sex- 
tus Manlius. 

The patricians seeing themselves left nearly alone in the 
city, found that they must yield. Valerius and Horatius 
came from them to the camp, to learn the demands of the 
plebeians. Icilius as spokesman required that the tribunate 
and the right of appeal should be restored ; that no one should 
be accounted criminal for having urged the people to the se- 
cession ; that the decemvirs should be given up to be burnt 
alive. The deputies replied, that the two first conditions were 
so reasonable that they should have proposed them them- 
selves ; they prayed them to recede from the last demand. 
All was then left to their own discretion ; and on their re- 
turn, the senate passed a decree, that the decemvirs should 
abdicate and consuls be chosen, the chief pontiff preside at 
the election of the tribunes, and none be molested for their 
share in the secession. The plebs then returned, ascended 
the capitol in arms, * and thence proceeded to the Aventine. 

The Pontiff presiding, the people chose their tribunes, 
among whom were, as they well merited, Virginius, Icilius, 
Numitorius, and Duilius. On the motion of Duilius, the 
plebs then ordered that the interrex should hold the elec- 
tion of patrician consuls,! with the right of appeal ; and 
the centuries when assembled bestowed the consulate on 
L. Valerius and M. Horatius. These popular consuls forth- 
with passed laws for the security of the plebs, the senate 
and curies giving a reluctant consent. The first was that 
a measure passed by the tribes should be of equal force with 
one passed by the centuries, and if confirmed by the patri- 
cians, should be the law of the land; the second menaced 
with outlawry whoever procured the election of a magis- 
strate without appeal ; the third enacted the penalty of out- 
lavvry and confiscation of property against any one who 

* Cicero for Cornel. 1. 24 ; probably to worship the gods. For a 
somewhat similar act at Athens, see History of Greece, p. 303, 2d edit. 

t It was on this occasion the word consul was first employed. (Zona 
ra^. vii. 19,) The office now was only provisional. 

9 M 



yy HISTORY OF ROME. 

injured the tribunes, the sediles, the judges, or the plebeian 
decemvirs. The legislation was terminated by a bill of the 
tribune Duilius denouncing death by fire against any one 
who should leave the people without tribunes, or create a 
magistrate without appeal. 

Vengeance for Virginia was now to be exacted. Virginius 
summoned Appius and his client Claudius before the tri- 
bunal of the tribes. Instead of seeking safety in exile, the 
haughty decemvir appeared in the Forum surrounded by a 
band of patrician youths. Virginius ordered him to be 
seized and laid in chains ; the officer approached : Appius 
claimed the protection of the tribunes ; no one stirred ; he 
appealed to the people : the officer dragged him away to 
prison. His uncle, C. Claudius, who having vainly sought 
to induce him and his colleagues to lay down their office 
in the hands of the senate, had retired to his paternal abode 
atRegillus, came to Rome, and with his gentiles and clients 
all in mourning went about the Forum supplicating for his 
release. Virginius, on the other hand, called on the people 
to remember his and their wrongs. The prayers of the 
Claudii were of no avail. Appius died in prison, probably 
by his own hand, before the, day of trial came. 

Numitorius then impeached the plebeian decemvir Sp. Op- 
pius for not having given protection to Virginia. A veteran 
who had served in seven-and-twenty campaigns came for 
ward and exhibited the marks of a scourging inflicted on 
him by Oppius without a cause. He too was sent to prison 
where he died also by his own hand. The other decemvirs 
were suffered to go into exile, but their property was confis- 
cated. M. Claudius was tried and found guilty ; but Vir- 
ginius remitting the capital punishment, he was allowed to go 
into exile to Tibur. " The manes of Virginia, more happy 
in her death than in her life, having roamed through so 
many houses exacting vengeance, rested at length when no 
guilty person remained." 

To calm the alarms of the patricians, Duilius now declared 
prosecution to be at an end, and that no one should be 
molested for his acts during the decemvirate. 



VICTORIES OF VALERIUS AND HORATIUS. 99 



CHAPTER IV. 

VICTORIES OF VALERIUS AND HORATIUS. CANULEIAN LAW. 

CENSORSHIP AND MILITARY TRIBUNATE. FEUD AT AR- 

DEA. SP. MELIUS. ^QUIAN AND VOLSCIAN WAR. CAP- 
TURE OF FIDEN^. VOLSCIAN WAR. MURDER OF POSTUMI- 

US BY HIS OWN SOLDIERS. VEIENTINE WAR. CAPTURE 

OF VEIL SIEGE OF FALERII. EXILE OF CAMILLUS. 

When all was settled in the city (305) the consuls raised 
their levies for the JEquian and Sabine campaigns. The 
young men gave their names readily, the veterans came for- 
ward as volunteers. Valerius marched to Mount Algidus ; 
and after a series of manoeuvres to raise the confidence of 
his men, he fell on and defeated the ^Equians, and took 
their camp. Similar good fortune attended Horatius, who 
had gone against the Sabines ; and the two armies returned 
to Rome at the same time. The consuls, as was the usage, 
summoned the senate to the temple of Mars without the 
Capene gate, to give an account of their campaign and de- 
mand a triumph. The senate, alleging that they were there 
under the control of the soldiery, adjourned to the temple of 
Apollo, where they refused them the honor, as being trai- 
tors to their order. The plebs hearing of this indignity, on 
the motion of Icilius overstepped their legal powers, and 
voted them a triumph; and thus the patricians by their ma- 
lignant folly lost one of their privileges. 

The victory of Horatius over the Sabines is memorable for 
having put an end to the wars of this people with Rome. 
For a century and a half amity prevailed between the two 
states, grounded probably on treaties, of which no memorial 
remains. The cause which inclined the Sabines to peace 
appears to have been the emigration of their warlike youth, 
who went to join their kindred tribes of Samnium, who were 
now beginning to appear as conquerors in Campania. 

Four years now passed away without any event of much 
importance. In 310, nine of the tribunes concurred in 
bringing in a bill for electing one of the consuls from each 
order ; and C. Canuleius, the other tribune, one for granting 
the connuhium, that is, leo-alizina: marriage between the two 
orders. Both these propositions gave great offence to the 
patricians ; the usual expedient of foreign war and levies 
v/as recurred to, but in vain : the tribunes were resolute 



100 HISTORY OF ROME. 

At length the patricians agreed to pass the Canuleian law. 
For their good sense must have shown the more prudent, 
that the patricians as the smaller body were the real suf- 
ferers by the prohibition ; and in fact these mixed marriages 
had all along prevailed,* and the families arising from them, 
and therefore belonging to the plebeians, were the most 
violent enemies of the patricians. From the debate on this 
subject we learn that the tribunes were now admitted into 
the senate-house, but without the right of voting. Their 
seat was on benches before the open door.t 

The other bill was altered, so as to allow of the consuls 
being taken from the two orders without distinction. 
Though this was a concession to the patricians, it did not 
content them. Scenes of violent altercation took place : 
the heads of the senate held secret deliberations, in which 
C. Claudius is said to have actually proposed the murder 
of the tribunes ; but even to the two Q,uinctii this seemed 
too violent a course, and it was resolved to come to an ac- 
commodation with them. 

By this compact the constitution assumed a new form ; 
the decemvirate was resolved into its three component parts, 
which were separated from each other — the censorship, the 
queestorship, and the military tribunate with consular author- 
ity, — of which the former two were reserved for the patri- 
cians, the one to be conferred by the curies, the other by the 
centuries ; the tribunate was open to both orders, and came 
in place of the consulate. The business of the censors, who 
were two in number and were elected every five years, was 
to manage the revenues of the state, and to keep a registry 
of the citizens according to their ranks and orders. They let 
the tolls and customs and other taxes, and they enrolled 
members in the senate, the equestrian order, and the tribes, 
or excluded such as were unworthy. The power of the 
censors v/as therefore very considerable. 

By the power which the censorship gave them of packing, 
as we may term it, the centuries, the patricians were in gen- 
eral able to keep the military tribunate in their own order ; 
nevertheless at the first election, L, Atilius Lonaus, one of 
three chosen, was a plebeian. On account of this it was pre- 
tended that the election had been irregular, and they were 
oblicred to resio-n before the end of three months. It is not 



* Plence so many patrician and plebeian families of the same name, 
1 Valerius Maximus, ii. 9, 7. 



FEUD AT AllDEA. 101 

unlikely that they may have refused to resign, for T. Q,uinc- 
tius was created dictator, who, having held a consular elec- 
tion, laid down his office on the thirteenth day. 

In the year 309, the people of Ardea and Aricia, who had 
been long disputing about the lands of Corioli, which had 
been lying waste since the time of its ruin by the Volscians, 
agreed to submit their differences to the decision of the 
Romans. The curies {concilium populi *) adjudged that the 
disputed lands belonged to neither of them, but had devolved 
to the Roman people. We know not how this decision was 
received, but in 311 an alliance was made between the Ro- 
man patricians and the corresponding party, or the old Rutu- 
lian houses, at Ardea, who were on ill terms with their plebs, 
with whom they came to open war the following year. The 
occasion was this : a beautiful plebeian maiden was wooed by 
one of her own order, and also by a member of the houses ; 
her guardians, for she had no father, were in favor of the 
former; her mother, urged by female vanity, of the latter. 
The affair at length came before the magistrates, who, though 
the right to dispose of their ward plainly lay with the guard- 
ians, decided in favor of the patrician. The guardians car- 
ried the maiden by force from her mother's ; the patricians 
took up arms ; a violent fray arose, and the plebs was driven 
out of the town : they encamped on an adjoining hill, whence 
they ravaged the lands of their enemies; the artisans came 
out of the town and joined them, and Cloelius, an ^quiari 
general, led a body of troops to their aid. The houses called 
on their Roman allies, and the consul, M. Geganius, came 
and circumvallated the ^quian army that was investing the 
town. The yEquians had to surrender their general, and to 
pass under the yoke.f To strengthen the Rutulian houses, 
colonists were sent thither from Rome. 

All was now quiet at Rome, till in 315 a dreadful famine, 
in consequence of the failure of the crops, came on. L. 
Minucius, who was created prefect of the corn market, made 
every exertion to purchase corn, but could only obtain some 
small supplies from Etruria : all persons were obliged to 
deliver up what corn they had beyond a month's consump- 
tion ; the allowance of the slaves was diminished ; the corn 
dealers were prosecuted as regraters and engrossers. Still 



* So it is expressly called by Livy, ii. 71. It could not have been the 
plebs, who had nothing to do with the public land. 
\ See above, p. 90. 
9* 



102 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the famine was so sore that numbers of the plebeians threw 
themselves into the Tiber. 

In this universal distress, Sp. Mselius, a wealthy plebeian 
knight, made extensive purchases of corn in Etruria, which 
he sold at low prices, or distributed gratis to the poor of his 
order. This gained him great favor ; the patricians became 
suspicious of him ; and Minucius, it is said, accused him to 
the consuls of the next year (316) of designs against the 
government: the senate sat a whole day in secret delibera- 
tion; the Capitol and other strong posts were garrisoned; 
and L. duinctius Cincinnatus, now eighty years of age, was 
created dictator. 

Next morning the dictator entered the Forum with an 
armed train, and set up his tribunal. At his command, 
C. Servilius Ahala, the master of the horse, went to summon 
before him Mselius, who was present. Mselius hesitated : the 
officers advanced to seize him ; he snatched up a butcher's 
knife to defend himself, and ran back into the crowd. 
Ahala, sword in hand, and followed by a band of armed 
patrician youths, rushed after him ; the people gave way, and 
he ran Mselius through the body. The murder, for such it 
undoubtedly was, was applauded by the venerable dictator.* 
The house of Maslius was pulled down, and its site left 
desolate, (the Jiiquimelium :) and posterity, following the 
traditions of the duinctian and Servilian houses, had no 
doubt of his guilt, or of the public virtue of Ahila. Their 
contemporaries, however, thought differently. When the 
terror of the dictatorship was removed, three tribunes de- 
manded vengeance for the death of Maelius ; an insurrection 
broke out, Ahala had to go into exile, and the patricians 
were obliged to allow the election of military tribunes, to 
appease the people. 

The year 317 was distinguished by the revolt of FidensB. 
This town, which lay five miles up the Tiber, beyond the 
Anio, had received a colony about sixty years before : a part 
of the colonists were now expelled, a part probably shared 
in the revolt. An alliance was formed with the Veientines 
and Faliscans, and their united forces appeared more than 
once before the Colline gate. Dictators were appointed 
against them, and in 320 the dictator A. Servilius Priscus 



* Plutarch (Brutus, 1) gives a novel view of the act of Ahdia. He 
is with him another Brutus. 



VOLSCIAN WAR. 103 

* 

conquered the town. The ringleaders were beheaded, but 
no further penalty was inflicted on the people. 

In 322 the pestilence again spread its ravages at Rome : and 
in 3*24 the truce with the ^quians being expired, they and 
a part of the Volscians raised two armies of select troops, 
bound by oath to conquer or die, and encamped on the Algi- 
dus. In this emergency the senate resolved to create a dicta- 
tor ; the consuls, however, refused to proclaim him, and the 
senate having appealed to the tribunes, they forced the con- 
suls by a menace of imprisonment to submit. The person 
appointed was A. Postumius Tubertus. 

The dictator, aware Of the magnitude of the danger, called 
out all the forces of the state. Four armies were formed ; 
one, the city legions, was left at Rome under the consul C. 
Julius ; the reserve, under the master of the horse, L. Julius, 
lay without the walls. The dictator and the consul T. duinc- 
tius marched with the remainder to the Algid us, where they 
were joined by the Latins and Hernicans. They encamped 
within a mile of the enemy, the consul on the road to Lanu- 
vium, the dictator on that to Tuscuium. Skirmishes took 
place daily, in one of which the dictator's son having left the 
post assigned him to engage the enemy, was on his return 
victorious, put to death by his inexorable sire for his breach 
of orders. At length the enemy made a combined attack by 
night on the consul's camp ; but meantime that of the 
^quians was stormed by some cohorts sent against it by the 
dictator, who himself came by a circuitous route into the 
rear of those who were assailing the consul's- camp. The 
troops of the dictator and the consul attacked them simul- 
taneously ; at break of day the exhausted foe gave way ; 
a brave man named Vettius Messius placing himself at their 
head, they broke through and made their way to the Volscian 
camp, which still was safe ; but they were soon followed and 
surrounded there also : the camp was stormed, quarter was 
given to those who threw down their arms, but all were sold 
except the senators. The dictator having triumphed laid down 
his office. The following year a truce for eight years was 
made with the yEquians. Among the Volscians there was a 
peace and a war party, and the former seems to have been the 
stronger, as during these eight years all was quiet on this side. 
In 327, a conspiracy being discovered at Fidenae, the 
heads of it were relegated to Ostia ; more colonists were sent 
to Fidense, and the lands of those who had been executed or 
had fallen in war were given to them. This year also was 



104 HISTORY OF ROME. 

one of pestilence The next year (328) war was formally 
declared against Veii, on which occasion a further progress 
was made in the constitution, as the tribunes succeeded in 
having the question brought before the centuries, instead of 
being decided by the senate alone. One good result of this 
was that the levies were never again obstructed. 

Consular tribunes being elected for 329, they led their 
forces against Veii, but from their want of concord they gave 
the enemy an opportunity of falling on and routing them. 
Mamercus ^milius was immediately made dictator, and he 
named A. Cornelius Cossus, one of tlie tribunes, his master 
of the horse. The Veientines, elate with their success, sent 
to invite volunteers from all parts of Etruria, and they tried 
to induce the Fidenates to revolt once more. Envoys were 
despatched from Rome to warn them of their duty ; but the 
envoys were detained in custody, and the revolt resolved on. 
Lars Tolumnius, the Veientine king, led his army over the 
Tiber, and encamped before Fidense. He was playing at dice 
when the Fidenates sent to inquire what should be done with 
the Roman envoys. Without interrupting his game, he cried, 
" Put them to death ! " His mandate was executed ; the col- 
onists were butchered at the same time, and all hopes of pardon 
thus cut off. The Roman army soon appeared to exact ven- 
geance ; the skilful dispositions of the dictator and the valor 
of his troops gained a complete victory. Lars Tolumnius 
fell by the hand of the n^aster of the horse, who dedicated 
his spolia opima, the first since the days of Romulus, in the 
temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Fidenae was taken, its inhabit- 
ants massacred or sold for slaves, and it dwindled into utter 
insignificance. 

A truce with Veii for twenty, and with the ^quians for 
three (cyclic) years was the only etent of the year 330. In 
33] , as territory had been gained in the late wars, the trib- 
unes demanded that assignments out of it should be made to 
the plebeians, and the tithe be levied off what was possessed 
by the patricians for the payment of the troops. 

Li 332 the Volscians took up arms, being convinced from 
the growing power of Rome that they must either make a 
bold and decisive effort, or part with their independence. 
Their troops were numerous and well disciplined. The con- 
sul, C. Sempronius Atratinus, who commanded the Roman 
army, evinced neither skill nor energy : the soldiers had no 
confidence either in him or themselves. In the battle they 
were giving vi^ay, when Sex. Tempanius, a plebeian knight 



VOLSCIAN WAR. 105 

calling on the horsemen to dismount and follow him, and 
raising his spear as a standard, advanced against the foe, who, 
at the command of their leader, gave way and let them 
through, and then closed to cut them oif from the Roman 
army. The consul seeing his cavalry thus isolated redoubled 
his efforts. Tempanius, having vainly essayed to break 
through again, retired to an eminence, where a part of the Vol- 
scians surrounded him. Night ended the conflict : each army, 
thinking itself conquered, abandoned its camp and wounded, 
and retired to the mountains. In the morning Tempanius 
and his comrades, finding the two camps deserted, returned to 
Rome, where their appearance caused great joy, as the whole' 
army was supposed to be lost. The tribunes were loud in 
their accusation of the consul, bute Tempanius spok^ in his 
favor ; and when next year (333) he and three of his brother 
officers were elected tribunes, and one of their colleagues 
impeached Sempronius before the people, they protected him, 
and induced the prosecutor to forego the charge. • 

During the next seventeen years (334 — 351) the internal 
disputes respecting the public land continued, and the pa- 
tricians, by their old tactics of gaining a majority of the trib- 
unes to their side, prevented any thing being done. But the 
plebeians were slowly and surely gaining strength. In 334 
the consuls proposed that the number of the quaestors of the 
treasury, which had been two, should be doubled ; the trib- 
unes insisted that the new places should belong to the ple- 
beians, and it was agreed that they should be chosen promis- 
cuously out of both orders. This, as in the case of the con- 
sular tribunate, was no immediate gain to the plebeians, but 
they trusted to the sure operation of time. Henceforth a 
quaestor attended every army to superintend the sale of the 
booty, the produce of which was either divided among the 
soldiers or brought into the yErarium, the common treasury 
of the state, not, as heretofore, into the Publicum of the pa- 
tricians. 

The wars with the ^Equians and Volscians were con- 
tinued also throughout this period ; but the power of these 
peoples was greatly crippled by the conquests which the 
Samnites were now making on their southern frontier. In 
337 the iEquians and the Lavicans entered and ravaged the 
lands ofTusculum, and then encamped on the Algidus. An 
army was sent against them, which sustained a defeat. Q,. 
Servilius Prrscus was then created dictator : he routed the 
enemies, took their camp, stormed the town of Lavici, and 

N 



106 HISTORY OF ROME. 

then laid down his office on the eighth day. In 340 the for- 
merly Latin, now JSquian, town of Boise was taken, on which 
occasion the Roman soldiers committed a crime unknown to 
their history for centuries after. 

The consular tribune M. Postumius, who commanded, had 
promised them the plunder of the town, but when it was 
taken he broke his word. He had also been summoned by 
his colleagues to Rome, where the tribunes were clamoring 
for a division of the conquered land ; and when the tribune 
Sextius spoke of the rights of the soldiers, "Woe to mine," 
said he, " if they do not keep quiet ! " These words soon 
made their way to the camp, and still further exasperated the 
men. A tumult broke out when the quaestor was selling the 
booty, in which he was struck by a stone. Postumius sat in 
judgment on this offence, and ordered the most severe pun- 
ishments. The men became enraged, and losing all respect 
stoned their general to death. This event was advantageous 
to the oligarchs, as the plebeians had to allow of the election 
of consuls for the next year, (342,) and to permit them to 
institute an inquiry into the death of Postumius. It was con- 
ducted with great moderation : the condemned terminated 
their lives by their own hands. 

In 347 the Antiates, seeing the danger which menaced 
their kindred, engaged in the war. A combined army en- 
camped before the walls of Antium, where it was attacked 
and totally defeated by a Roman army, led by the dictator 
P. Cornelius. The campaign of 349 was more important ; 
three Roman armies took the field : one, led by the consu- 
lar tribune L. Valerius, approached Antium ; his colleague 
P. Cornelius advanced with another against Ecetra ; while 
N. Fabius with the third laid siege to Tarracina, which 
lay on the side of a steep hill over the Pomptine marshes. 
A part of the army having gotten to the summit of the hill 
over the town, it was forced to surrender : the plunder was 
divided among the three armies, and a colony sent to the 
town. 

A war, the last, with Veii succeeded. At the expiration 
of the truce the Romans demanded satisfaction for the crime 
ofTolumnius; the Veientines, who feared war, applied for 
aid to the other peoples of Etruria, and various congresses 
were held at the temple of Voltumna to consider the matter. 
Aid, however, was refused, perhaps through jealousy, more 
probably in consequence of the pressure of a foe soon to 
appear on the north of the Apennines; it may also have been 



VEIENTINE WAR. 107 

thought that the strength of its walls would enable Veil to 
resist any attack made on it by the Romans. 

The city of Veii, which lay twelve miles from Rome, was 
encompassed by strong walls four miles in circuit. The 
Tuscans, who possessed it, ruled over a population of sub- 
jects and serfs much like the Spartans in Greece ; their own 
numbers were small, they could not rely on their subjects, 
and it was only the aid of volunteers from other parts of 
Etruria that enabled them at any time to wage war with 
advantage against the Romans. 

The Romans, on their side, saw that though they might 
ravage the lands of Veii, yet so long as the town remained 
unconquered, retaliation would be easy ; whereas could it be 
conquered, the advance of the power of Rome might be 
rapid and permanent. This, however, could only be effected 
by keeping a force constantly in the field ; but to do this it 
would be necessary to recur to the old practice of giving the 
troops pay, for v/hich purpose the tithe must be paid honestly 
off the domain-land. This the senate, rising above the paltry, 
narrow considerations which used to influence it, resolved 
should be done, and pay be given to the infantry as well as 
the cavalry ; and as mutual concessions were usually made 
betv/een the orders, the people seem to have agreed that the 
veto of one tribune — not that of the majority, as heretofore, 
in the college — should suffice to stop the proceedings of the 
tribunes, the patricians reckoning that they would be able, 
in most cases, to gain over one of them. War, therefore, 
against Veii was declared in the year 349. 

The campaigns of the years 350 and 351 seem to have 
been little more than plundering excursions into the Vei- 
entine territory ; forts (castella) like that on the Cremera 
were raised and garrisoned to prevent the cultivation of 
the lands and the passage of supplies to Veii. In the third 
year (352) siege was laid to the town, a mound advanced 
against its walls, and the gallery under which the battering 
rams were to play had nearly reached the wall, when the 
besieged made a sally, drove off the besiegers, burned the 
gallery and the sides of the mound, which they then levelled. 
The news of this reverse only stimulated the Romans to 
greater exertions: the knights to whom no horses could oe 
assigned offered to serve with their own ; a like zeal was 
manifested by the classes, and the campaign of 353 was 
opened by the appearance of a gallant army under the 
consular tribunes L. Virginius and M'. Sergius before Veii. 



108 HISTORY OF ROME. 

The Veieiitines on their side were aided by their neighbors 
the Capenates and Faliscans, who now saw that the danger 
was a common one. 

The Roman generals, who were at enmity with each other, 
had separate camps ; that of Sergius, which was the smaller, 
was suddenly attacked by the allies, while the Veientines 
made a sally from the town ; the pride of Sergius would not 
let him send for assistance to the other camp ; while Vir- 
ginias, pretending to believe that if his colleague wanted aid 
he would apply for it, kept his troops under arms, but would 
not stir. At length the camp of Sergius was forced : a few 
fled to the other camp, himself and the greater number to 
Rome. The other camp had then to be abandoned ; and the 
whole of the tribunes were obliged to lay down their office 
on account of the misconduct of Virginius and Sergius. 
Among those chosen to succeed them was M. Furius Ca- 
millus, afterwards so famous, whose name now appears for 
the first time. A large force was brought into the field, with 
which Camillus and one of his colleagues ravaged the lands 
of the Capenates and Faliscans up to the walls of their cities. 

The internal history of this year (354) was remarkable 
for a bold attempt of the oligarchs to get two of themselves 
chosen into the college of the tribunes of the people.* They 
were, however, utterly foiled; the college was firm and unan- 
imous : a heavy fine was imposed on Sergius and Virginius 
for their ill conduct, and an agrarian law was passed, which 
put an end to the frauds by which the payment of the tithe 
had been eluded. The next year (355) the patricians were 
forced to allow one plebeian among the military tribunes, 
and the following year (356) all but the prefect of the city 
were plebeians. 

A severe winter was succeeded by a pestilential summer ; 
still the armies took the field, and formed, as in 354, a double 
camp before Veii. The Faliscans and Capenates repeated 
the manoeuvre which had succeeded in that year ; but the 
Roman generals were at perfect amity, and they met with a 
complete defeat. The territories of Capena and Falerii were 
ravaged again the next year, and in 358 the Tarquinians, 
who had taken arms and made an incursion into the Roman 
territory, were waylaid on their return and routed with great 
loss. In 359, the last year of the war, tKe tribunes being 

* For the patricians were now in the tribes. It, however, continued 
to be the rule that none but a plebeian could be a tribune. 



CAPTURE OF VEIL 109 

all plebeians, two of them, L. Titinius and Cn. Genucius, in- 
vaded the lands of Capena and Falerii ; but conducting them- 
selves incautiously, they met with a defeat. Genucius fell 
in the action, Titinius broke through the enemy and got off, 
the troops before Veii were hardly restrained from flight, 
and Rome was filled with alarm. Camillus was now raised 
to the dictatorship ; he exerted himself to restore confidence 
and discipline to the troops : the contingents of the Latins 
and Hernicans arrived, the dictator took the field, and hav- 
ing given the Faliscans and Capenates a complete defeat at 
Nepete, he sat down before Veii with a numerous army. 

So far the narrative of the Veientine war is historical ; in 
what is to come a poetic tale, of the same kind with those 
we have already noticed, has usurped the place of the sim- 
ple narrative of the annals. 

Various portents announced the fall of Veii. Among 
others the waters of the Alban lake rose in the midst of the 
dog-days, without a fall of rain or any other natural cause, 
to such a height as to overflow and deluge the surrounding 
country. Fearing deceit from the Etruscan augurs, the 
senate sent a solemn embassy to consult the Pythian oracle. 
The news reached the camp before Veii, and as there was 
then a truce, and those on both sides who were previously 
acquainted were in the habit of conversing together, it also 
came to the knowledge of the Veientines. Impelled by des- 
tiny a soothsayer mocked the efforts of the Romans, telling 
them that the sacred books declared they should never take 
Veil. A Roman centurion some days after, pretending that 
a prodigy had fallen out in his house which he was anxious 
to expiate, invited the aruspex to meet him in the plain 
between the town and the Roman camp. Seduced by the 
prospect of the proffered reward he came out; the centurion 
drew him near the Roman lines, and then suddenly, being 
young and vigorous, dragged the feeble old man into the 
camp. He was instantly transferred to Rome; by menaces 
the senate forced him to tell the truth, and he declared that 
the books of fate announced that, so long as the lake kept 
overflowing, Veii could not be taken, and that, if its waters 
reached the sea, Rome would perish. The envoys arrived 
soon after from Delphi with a similar reply, the god prom- 
ising the conquest of Veii if they spread the waters over 
the fields, and demanding a tithe of the spoil. Forthwith 
a tunnel was commenced in the side of the mountain to 
draw off the water of the lake and distribute it over the ad- 
10 



110 HISTORY OF ROME. 

jacent fields.* It advanced rapidly : the Veientines, seeing 
their impending fate, sent an embassy to sue for favor; 
mercy was unrelentingly refused : the chief of the embassy 
then warned the Romans to beware, for the same oracles 
foretold that the fall of Veii would be followed by the cap- 
ture of Rome by the Gauls. He warned in vain, no mercy 
was to be obtained. 

Meantime the work by which Veii was to be taken went 
on : the Romans appeared to be waiting the slow effects of 
a blockade ; but their army was divided into six bands, each 
of which wrought for six hours, by turns, at a mine, which 
was to lead into the temple of Juno on the citadel. When 
it was completed, Camillus sent to inquire of the senate 
what should be done with the spoil. Ap. Claudius advised 
to sell it, and reserve the proceeds for the pay of the army 
on future occasions : P. Licinius, a plebeian military trib- 
une, insisted that it should be divided not merely among 
the troops before Veii, but among all the citizens, as all had 
made sacrifices. It was so decreed ; and on proclamation 
being made, old and young flocked to the camp. 

When the vi^aters of the Alban lake were dispersed over the 
fields and the mine completed, Camillus, having made a vow 
to celebrate great games to the gods, and dedicate a temple 
to Mother Matuta, and also promised high honors to Queen 
Juno, the patron goddess of Veii, and a tenth of the spoil to 
the Pythian Apollo, entered the mine at the head of his co- 
horts. At the same moment the horns sounded for the as- 
sault ; scaling-ladders were advanced. The citizens hastened 
to man their walls; their king was sacrificing in the temple 
of Juno ; the aruspex, when he saw the victim, cried _ out 
that those who offered it to the goddess w^ould be the vic- 
tors. The Romans, who were beneath, hearing this, burst 
forth; Camillus seized and offered the flesh; his men rushed 
down from the citadel and opened the gates to those with- 
out; and thus Veii, like Troy, was taken by stratagem, after 
a ten years' siege. t 

The spoil was immense, and no part of it, except the 
price of those who had been made prisoners before orders 

* The tunnel vi^as actually made at this time, though we are not to 
suppose it had any thing to do with the fate of Veii. It is 6000 feet 
long, 3i wide, and high enough for a man to walk in it, wrought through 
the lava, which is as hard as iron. 

t The mine is as evident a fiction as the Trojan horse. In all ancient 
history there is no authentic account of a town taken in this way. 



CAPTURE OF VEIL 111 

were given to spare the unarmed, and who therefore were 
sold, was brought into the treasury. It is related that as 
Camillus looked from the citadel down on the magnificent 
city he had won, he called to mind the envy with which 
the gods were believed to regard human prosperity, and 
prayed that it might fall as lightly as possible on himself^ 
and the Roman people; as he turned round to worship, he 
stumbled and fell, and he fondly deemed this to have ap- 
peased the envy of the Immortals. He dared then to enter 
Rome in triumph, in a car drawn by white horses, like that 
of Jupiter and Sol, (Sun,) a thing never witnessed before or 
after ; and the wrath of Heaven fell erelong on himself and 
the city. 

The statue of Q,ueen Juno was now to be removed to 
Rome, according to the dictator's vow ; but as only a priest 
of a certain house could touch it, the Romans were filled 
with awe. ^t length a body of chosen knights, having pu- 
rified themselves and put on white robes, entered the tem- 
ple. The goddess being asked if she was willing to go to 
Rome, her assenting voice was distinctly heard, and the 
statue of its own accord moved with those who conveyed 
it out. ^ 

The tithe was to be sent to the god at Delphi ; but 
the spoil was mostly consumed and spent ; the pontiffs de- 
clared that the state was only accountable for what had been 
received by the quaestors, and for the land and buildings at 
Veii, and that therefore the sin of those who kept back 
their share of it would lie at their own door. Conscience 
made all refund; but much ill will accrued to Camillus for 
his not having reminded them in time of his vow. It was 
resolved to make a golden bowl (crater) to the value of the 
tenth, but there was not sufficient gold in the treasury; 
the matrons then came forward, and proffered to lend the 
state their ornaments and jewels of gold : their offer was 
graciously accepted, and in return the privilege of going 
through the city in chariots was granted them, — an honor 
hitherto confined to the principal magistrates. The bowl 
was made, and a trireme and three envoys despatched with 
it to Delphi. But the ship was captured and carried into 
Lipara by some cruisers, who took it for a pirate. Timo- 
sitheiis however, the chief magistrate of the place, released 
it, and sent it with a convoy to Greece, for which the Ro- 
mans granted him the right oi proxeny to the state. The 
bowl was deposited in the treasury of the Massalians, 



J 12 HISTORY OF ROME. 

whence, not many years after, it was taken and melted 
down by Onomarchus the Phocian.* 

The year after the capture of Veil, (360,) the Capenates 
were compelled to sue for peace ; and a colony of three 
thousand plebeian veterans were sent to the ^quian 
^.country, the patricians hoping to be able to keep the rich 
Veientine lands to themselves. But the tribunes insisted 
that the lands and houses there should be assigned to the 
two orders alike. As this, by dividing the Roman people 
into two parts, would be the destruction of the unity of the 
state, the patricians opposed it most warmly : by gaining 
over two of the tribunes they staved it off for two years ; 
and in 362, when the tribunes were unanimous, and the two 
who had opposed before had been heavily fined, the senators, 
by addressing themselves to their plebeian tribesmen, and 
showing the evil of the measure, got it rejected by a ma- 
jority of eleven out of the twenty-one tribes. *Next day a 
vote of the senate assigned a lot of seven jugers of Veientine 
land to every free person who needed it. 

In 361, Camillus, being one of the military tribunes, en- 
tered the Faliscan territory. The Faliscans had encamped 
in a strong position about a mile from the town ; but he 
drove them from it, and then advancing, sat down before 
Falerii. While he was beleageuring this town, the following 
event is said to have occurred. 

It was the custom at Falerii, as in Greece, to place the 
boys of different families under one master, (7iavdayb)ydg,^ 
who always accompanied them at their sports and exercises. 
The master of the boys of several of the noblest families, 
continuing to take them outside of the town to exercise as 
before the siege, led them one day into the Roman camp, 
and taking them to Camillus declared that he thereby put 
Falerii into his hands. The generous Roman, disgusted 
with such treachery, ordered his hands to be tied behind his 
back, and giving rods to the boys, made them whip him 
into the town. Overcome by such magnanimity, the Falis- 
cans surrendered, and the Roman senate was satisfied with 
their giving a year's pay to the soldiers. 

The year 364 saw Rome at war with two more states of 
Etruria, Vulsinii, and Salpinum ; but their resistance was 
brief, eight thousand Vulsinians laying down their arms al- 

* Diodor. xiv. 93. Appian, Ital. Fragm. 8. See History of Greece, 
Part III. chap. i. For proxeny, see same, p. 48, note, 2d edit. 



THE GAULS. 113 

most without fighting, and the Salpinates not daring to leave 
their walls to defend their lands. A truce for twenty years 
was made with the Vulsinians, on their giving a year's pay for 
the Roman troops. But this year was rendered still more 
notable by the impeachment of Camillas by the tribune li. 
Apuleius, for having secreted a part of the plunder of Veii. 
The evidence appears to have been clear against him, (two 
brazen doors from Veii, it is said, were found in his house,) 
and the people were exasperated. When he applied to his 
clients in the tribes to get him off, they replied that they 
could not acquit him, but that, as in duty bound, they would 
contribute to pay whatever iine might be imposed on him. 
Finding his case hopeless, he resolved to go into exile. 
When outside of the gate of the city, he turned round, and 
regarding the Capitol, lifted up his hands, and prayed to the 
gods that Rome might soon have cause to regret him. A 
fine of 15,000 asses was laid on him by the people. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE GAULS. THEIR INVASION OF ITALY. SIEGE OF CLU- 

SIUM. BATTLE OF THE ALIA. ^^TAKING OF ROME. 

REBUILDING OF THE CITY. DISTRESS OF THE PEOPLE. ■ 

M. MANLIUS. THE LICINIAN ROGATIONS. PESTILENCE 

AT ROME. M. CURTIUS. HERNICAN WAR. COMBAT OF 

MANLIUS AND A GAUL. GALLIC AND TUSCAN WARS. 

COMBAT OF VALERIUS AND A GAUL. REDUCTION OF THE 

RATE OF INTEREST. 

The ruthless prayer of Camillus was accomplished ; am- 
bassadors arrived soon after from Clusium in Etruria, pray- 
ing for aid against a savage people come from the confines 
of the earth, and named the Gauls. 

The people named Celts or Gauls were the original in- 
habitants of Europe west of the Rhine, where they were 
spread over France, the British Isles, and a great part, if 
not all, of Spain. They w-ere in a state of barbarism, far 
exceeding any that could ever have prevailed in Greece or 
Italy, having hardly any tillage or trade, and living on the 
milk and flesh of their cattle. In manners they were tur- 
10* o 



114 HISTORY OF ROME. 

bulent and brutal, easily excited, but deficient in energy and 
perseverance. Toward the time of the last V.eientine war, 
want, or the pressure of a superior power, (perhaps that of 
the Iberians in the south,) seems to have obliged several of 
their tribes to migrate. One portion pushed along the val- 
ley of the Danube; another crossed the Alps, and came down 
on northern Etruria, whose chief town, Melpura, they are 
said to have taken on the same day that Veii fell, and they 
rapidly made themselves masters of the whole plain of the 
Po. They then crossed the Apennines, and laid siege to 
the city of Clusium in Etruria, (364.) 

We are told that it was a Clusine who had invited them 
into Italy. A citizen of Clusium, named Aruns, had been 
the guardian of a Lucumo, who, when he grew up, seduced, 
or was seduced by, his guardian's wife. Aruns, having 
vainly sought justice from the magistrates, resolved to be 
revenged on them as well as on his injurer. He loaded 
mules with skins of wine and oil, and with rush-mats filled 
with dried figs, and crossing the Alps came to the Gauls, 
to whom such delicacies were unknown. He told them that 
they might easily win the land that produced them; and 
forthwith the whole people arose, with wives and children, 
and marched for Clusium.* 

When the Clusines called on the Romans for aid, the 
senate sent three of the Fabii, sons of M. Ambustus, the 
chief pontiff, to desire the Gauls not to molest the allies of 
Rome. The reply was, that they wanted land, and the 
Clusines must divide theirs with them. The Fabii enraged 
went into the town, and then forgetting their character of 
envoys, and that no Roman could bear arms against, any 
people till war had been declared and he had taken the 
military oath,t they joined the Clusines in a sally ; and 
Q,. Fabius, having slain a Gallic chief, was recognized as he 
was stripping him. Forthwith Brennus, the Gallic king, 
ordered a retreat to be sounded ; and selecting the hugest 
of his warriors, sent them to Rome, to demand the sur- 
render of the Fabii. The fetials urged the senate to free 
the republic from guilt: most of the senators acknowledged 
their duty, but they could not endure the idea of giving 
up men of such noble birth to the vengeance of a savage foe. 
They referred the matter to the people, who instantly cre- 

* It is scarcely necessary to mention that this is a mere legend 
t Cicero, Offic. i. 11. 



BATTLE OF THE ALIA. 115 

ated the offenders consular tribunes, and then told the en- 
voys that nothing could be done to them till the expiration 
of their office, at which time, if their anger continued, they 
might come and seek justice. Brennus, when he received 
this reply, gave the word " For Rome! " The Gallic horse 
and foot overspread the plains ; they touched not the prop- 
erty of the husbandman ; they passed by the towns and vil- 
lages as if they were friends; they crossed the Tiber, and 
reached the Alia,* a little stream that enters it about eleven 
miles from Rome. 

They would have found Rome unprepared, says the le- 
gend, t but that one night a plebeian named M. CaBdicius, as 
he was going down the Via Nova at the foot of the Pala- 
tine, heard a voice more than human calling him by name ; 
he turned, but could see no one ; he was then desired by 
the voice to go in the morning to the magistrates, and tell 
them that the Gauls were coming. On these tidings, the 
men of military age were called out and led against the 
foes, whom they met at the Alia. 

According to the real narrative,| when the Romans heard 
of the march of the Gauls, they summoned the troops of 
their allies, and arming all that could carry arms-, took 
a position near Veii ; but on learning that the enemy were 
making for the city by forced marches, they repassed the 
river, and advancing, met them at the Alia, (July 16.) The 
Gauls were 70,000 men strong; the Roman army of 40,000 
was divided into two wings or horns, {cornua,) the left of 
24,000 men rested on the Tiber, the right of 15,000 occu- 
pied some broken ground ; the Alia was between them and 
the enemy. Brennus fell on the right wing, which was 
chiefly formed of proletarians and serarians, and speedily 
routed it ; the left then, seeing itself greatly outflanked, 
was seized with a panic, broke, and made for the river : the 
Gauls assailed them on every side ; many were slain, many 
drowned; the survivors, mostly without arms, fled to Veii. 
The right wing, when broken, had fled through the hills to 

* Virgil, for the sake of his verse, spelled it Allia; the true word is 
Alia. Servius on iEn. vii. 717. 

t Zonaras, vii. 23, from Dion Cassius. Livy and the other vv^riters 
place this legend much earlier. 

+ The true account of the battle and the taking of Rome is given by 
Diodorus (xiv. 113 — 117) from Fabius. Livy and Plutarch follow the 
legend of Camillus. 



116 HISTORY OF HOME. 

Rome, carrying the news of the defeat ; ere nightfall the 
Gallic horse appeared on the Field of Mars, and before the 
Colline gate; but no attempt was made on the city; and 
that night and the succeeding day and night were devoted 
to plundering, rioting, drunkenness, and sleep. 

Meantime the Romans, aware of the impossibility of de- 
fending the city, resolved to collect all the provisions in it 
on the Capitol and citadel, which would contain about one 
thousand men, and there to make a stand. The rest of the 
people quitted Rome as best they could, to seek shelter in 
the neighboring towns, taking with them such articles as 
they could carry. A part of the sacred things was buried ; 
the Flamen Q,uirinalis, and the Vestal Virgins crossed the 
Sublician bridge on foot, with the remainder, on their way 
to Ceere. As they ascended the Janiculan, they were ob- 
served by L. Albinius, a plebeian, who was driving his wife 
and children in a cart; and he made them instantly get 
down, and give way to the holy virgins, whom he conveyed 
in safety to Caere. About eighty aged patricians, who 
were priests, or had borne curule offices, would not survive 
that Rome which had been the scene of all their glory : 
having solemnly devoted themselves, under the chief pontiff, 
for the republic and the destruction of her foes, they sat 
calmly awaiting death in their robes of state, on their ivory 
seats in the Forum. 

On the second day the Gauls burst open the Colline gate, 
and entered the city. A death-like stillness prevailed; they 
reached the Forum ; on the Capitol above they beheld armed 
men ; beneath in the Comitium the aged senators, like 
beings of another world : they were awe-struck, and paused. 
At length one put forth his hand, and stroked the venera- 
ble beard of M. Papiriiis ; the indignant old man raised his 
ivory sceptre, and smote him on the head ; the barbarian 
drew his sword, and slew him, and all the others shared 
his fate. The Gauls spread over the city in quest of plun- 
der, fires broke out in various quarters, and erelong the 
city was a heap of ashes, no houses remaining but a few on 
the Palatine reserved for the chiefs. 

The Gauls, having made divers fruitless attempts to force 
their way up the clivus of the Capitol, resolved to trust to 
famine for its reduction. But provisions soon began to run 
short; the dog-days and the sickly month of September 
came on, and they died in heaps. A part of them had 



TAKING OF ROME. 117 

marched away for Apulia; the rest ravaged Latium far and 
wide.* 

Meantime some people of Etruria (probably the Tarquin- 
ians) ungenerously took advantage of the distress of the 
Romans to ravage the Veientine territory, where the Roman 
husbandmen had taken refuge with what property they had 
been able to save. But the Romans at Veii, putting M. Ca3- 
dicius at their head, fell on them in the night, and routed 
them ; and having thus gotten a good deal of arms, of which 
they were so much in want, they began to prepare to act 
against the Gauls. A daring youth named Pontius Comin- 
ius swam one night on corks down the river, and eluding 
the Gauls clambered up the side of the Capitol,t and having 
given the requisite information to the garrison, returned by 
the way he came. 

Sut the Gauls soon took notice of a bush which had given 
way as Cominius grasped it; they also observed that the 
grass was trodden down in various places ; | the rock v/as 
therefore not inaccessible, and it was resolved to scale it. 
At midnight, a party came in dead silence to the spot, and 
began to ascend. Slowly and cautiously they clomb up ; no 
noise was made, the Romans were buried in sleep, their 
sentinels were negligent, even the dogs were not aroused. 
The foremost Gaul had reached the summit, when some 
geese, which as sacred to Juno had been spared in the 
famine, being startled, began to flutter and scream. The 
noise awoke M. Manlius, a consular, whose house stood on 
the hill ; he ran out, pushed down the Gaul, whose fall 
caused that of those behind, and the whole project was baf- 
fled. The negligent captain of the guard was flung down 
the rock with his hands tied behind his back ; and every 
man on the citadel gave Manlius half a pound of corn, and 
a quarter of a flask of wine as a reward. 

Still famine pressed ; the blockade had now lasted six 
months, and the garrison had begun to eat even the soles 

* Among the wonders of this period is the following. While the 
Gauls surrounded the Capitol, the time of the annual sacrifice of the 
F-ahmn gens on the Quirinal arrived. C. Fabius Dorso, who was on 
the Capitol, th©n girded himself with the Gabine cincture, took the 
requisite things in his hands, went down the clivus, ascended the 
Quirinal, performed the sacred rites, and returned, the Gauls, moved 
either by awe or by religion, offering him no opposition. 

t Under the modern Ara Cell, (Nieb. ii. 544,) that is, at the part of the 
hill farthest from the river, and by theCarmental Gate,(Plut. Camill.25.) 

X Plutarch, ut supra, 26. 



lis HISTORY OF ROME. 

of their shoes and the leather of their shields : the Gauls, 
on their side, found their army melting away, and tidings 
came that the Venetians had invaded their territory ; they 
therefore agreed to receive one thousand pounds of gold, 
and depart. At the weighing of the gold Brennus had false 
weights brought ; and when Q-. Sulpicius complained of the 
injustice, he flung his sword into the scale, crying, " Woe 
to the vanquished ! " ( Vcd victis!) The Gauls then departed 
and recrossed the Apennines with their wealth.* (365.) 

It is thus that history relates the transaction; the legend 
of Camillus tells a different tale. Camillus, an exile at 
Ardea, had, it says, at the head of the Ardeates, given the 
Gauls a check ; the Romans at Veii passed an ordinance of 
the plebs, restoring him to his civil rights, and making hira 
dictator ; to obtain the confirmation of the senate and cu- 
ries, Cominius ascended the Capitol. Camillus, at the head 
of his legions, entered the Forum just as the gold v/as being 
weighed ; he ordered it to be taken away : the Gauls pleaded 
the treaty ; he replied that it was not valid, being made 
without the knowledge of the dictator. Each side grasped 
their arms ; a battle was fought on the ruins of Rome : the 
Gauls were defeated, and a second victory on the Gabine 
road annihilated their army. Camillus entered Rome in 
triumph, leading Brennus captive, whom he ordered to be 
put to death, replying Vcs victis ! to his- remonstrances. 
But to return to history. 

Nothing could exceed the miserable condition of the Ro- 
mans after the departure of the Gauls ; their city was one 
heap of ruins, their property was nearly all lost or destroyed, 
their former allies and subjects were ill disposed toward 
them.t We are told in a legend, that the people of Ficu- 
lea, Fidense, and some of the adjacent towns, came in arms 
against Rome; and so great was the panic they caused, 
that a popular solemnity! ^^^P^ ^P ^^^® memory of it to a 
late age. They demanded a number of matrons and maidens 
of good families as the price of peace. The Romans were 
in the utmost perplexity, when a female slave, nam.ed Phi- 
lotis or Tutula, proposed a plan to avert disgrace from the 
ladies of Rome. She and several of her companions were 

* Polybius, ii. 22. Suetonius, Tiberius, 3. 

t Compare the account of the return of the Jews to their city, given 
in the Book of Ezra. 

t Fopulifugia, or JYoncB Caprotincz. Plut. Rom. 29. Camill 33. 
Macrob. Sat. i. 11. 



DISTRESS OF THE PEOPLE. 119 

clad in ihQ prcBtcxta, and amid the tears of their pretended 
relatives delivered to the Latins. The slaves encourao-ed 
their new lords to drink copiously ; they fell into a deep 
sleep, and Tutula, mounting a tree, raised a lighted torch 
toward Rome. The Romans fell on and massacred their 
slumbering foes, and Tutula and her companions were re- , 
warded with their freedom. Another tradition* told, that 
at this period the scarcity of food was such that the men 
past sixty were thrown into the river as being useless. One- 
old man was concealed by his son, through whom he gave 
such useful counsel to the state that the practice was ended. 

The people shrank from the prospect of rebuilding their 
ruined city, and it was vehemently urged that they should 
remove to Veii. Against this project, which would have 
probably quenched the glory of Rome forever, the patri- 
cians exerted themselves to the utmost, appealing to every 
feeling of patriotism and religion. A word of omen, casual 
or designed, was decisive. While the senate was debating, 
a centurion was heard to cry in the Comitium as he was 
leading his men over it, "Halt 1 we had best stop here." 
The senate allowed every one to take bricks wherever he 
found them, and to hew stone and wood where he liked. 
Veii was demolished for building materials ; and within the 
year Rome rose in an unsightly irregular form from her 
ruins. 

As a means of increasing the population, the civic fran- 
chise was given (366) to the people of such Veientine, 
Faliscan, and Capenate towns as had come over to the Ro- 
mans during the Veientine war ; and two years after (368) 
four new tribes (which raised the whole number to twenty- 
five) were formed out of them. 

The wars for some years offer little to interest. The 
Etruscans are said to have failed in attempts to take Sutrium 
and Nepete ; the Volscians of Antium and Ecetras went 
once more to war with Rome, now enfeebled; Hernican 
and Latin mercenaries fought on their side, but the valor of 
the Roman legions was still triumphant. The Preenestines 
also measured their strength with Rome, but the banks of 
the Alia witnessed their defeat. (375.) 

The internal history of this period is of far more im- 
portance. It was indeed a time of distress, augmented 
by the cruelty and harshness of the ruling order. In order 

* Festus, s. V. Sexagenaries. 



120 HISTORY OF ROME. 

to build their houses, procure farming implements, and 
other necessary things, the plebeians had to borrow money 
to a considerable extent. The rate of interest being now 
raised at Rome, the money lenders (^argentarii) flocked 
thither, and under the patronage of the patricians, for which 
. they had to pay high, they lent to the people at a most usurious 
rate ; interest speedily multiplied the principal ; there were 
also outstanding debts to the patricians themselves ; the 
severe law of debt, which the Twelve Tables had left in 
force, but which, owing to the prosperity of the following 
years, had rarely been acted on, was again in operation, 
and freeborn Romans were reduced to bondage at home, or 
sold out of their country. To augment the distress of the 
people, the government (urged most probably by superstition) 
laid on a tribute to raise double the amount of the thousand 
pounds of gold given to the Gauls, to replace it in the tem- 
ples whence it had been taken. 

In this state of things M. Manlius, the savior of the 
Capitol, came forward as the patron of the distressed. In 
birth and in valor, and every other ennobling quality, he 
yielded to no man of his time, and he ill brooked to see 
himself kept in the background, while his rival Camillus 
was year after year invested with the highest offices in the 
state. This feeling of jealousy may have influenced his 
subsequent conduct; but Manlius was a man of generous 
mind, and when one day (370) he saw a brave centurion, 
his fellow-soldier, led over the Forum in chains by the 
usurer to whom he had been adjudged, [addictus,) his pity 
was excited, and he paid his debt on the spot. Once in 
the career of generosity, Manlius could not stop ; he sold 
an estate beyond the Tiber, the most valuable part of his 
property, and saved nearly four hundred citizens from bond- 
age by lending them money without interest. 

His house on the citadel now became the resort of all 
classes of plebeians ; and he is said to have hinted in his 
discourses with them, that the patricians had embezzled the 
money raised to replace the votive oflerings, and that they 
should be made to refund and liquidate with it the debts of 
the poor. The proceedings of Manlius seemed so danger- 
ous to the senate, that, by their direction, the dictator A. 
Corrielius Cossus had him arrested and thrown into prison. 
Numbers of the plebeians now changed their raiment, and 
let their hair and beard grow neglected, as mourners; day 
and night they lingered about the prison-door ; and the 



M. MANLIUS. 121 

senate, either alarmed or having no real charge against him, 
set him at liberty. 

It is likely that the injustice of the senate may have ex- 
acerbated Manlius ; at all events he was now become a 
dangerous citizen, and two of the tribunes impeached him 
before the centuries for aiming at the kingdom. His own 
order, hi§ friends and kinsmen, and even his two brothers, 
deserted him in his need ; a thing unheard of, for even for 
the decemvir all the Claudian house had chancred their rai- 
ment. On the Field of Mars he produced all whom he had 
preserved from bondage for debt, and those whose lives he 
had saved in battle ; he displayed the arms of thirty foes 
whom he had slain, and forty rewards of valor conferred 
on him by different generals ; he bared his breast, covered 
with scars, and looking up to the Capitol implored the gods, 
whose fanes he had saved, to stand by him in his need. This 
appeal to gods and men was irresistible, and he was ac- 
quitted by the centuries. But his enemy Camillus was dic- 
tator, and he was arraigned before the curies, {concilium po- 
puli,) assembled in the Pcetilian grove, before the Nomentan 
gate, who readily condemned him to death, 

Manlius was either already in insurrection, or he resolved not 
to fall a passive victim. He and his partisans occupied the 
Capitol ; treachery was then employed against him ; a slave 
came, feigning to be a deputy from his brethren ; and as 
Manlius was walking on the edge of the precipice in confer- 
ence with him, he gave him a sudden push, and tumbled him 
down the rock.* 

The house of Manlius was razed; a decree was passed 
that no patrician should ever dwell on the Capitol ; and the 
Manlian gens made a by-law that none of them should ever 
bear the name of Marcus. The people mourned him ; and 
the pestilence with which Rome was shortly afterwards 
afflicted was regarded as a punishment sent by the gods to 
avenge the death of the preserver of their temples. 

Meantime the misery of the plebeians went on increasing; 
day after day debtors were dragged away from the praetor's 
tribunal to the private dungeons of the patricians ; the whole 
plebeian order lost spirit ; and the greedy, short-sighted patri- 
cians were on the point of reducing Rome to a feeble, con- 
temptible oligarchy, when two men appeared, who, by their 

* Dion, fragm. xxxi. Zonaras, vii. 24. In this manner Odysseus, 
one of the Greek chiefs in the late war. was killed at Athens. 
11 P 



123 HISTORY OF ROME. 

wisdom and firmness, changed the fate of Rome, and with it 
that of the world. These were the tribunes C. Liciniifs 
Stolo and L. Sextius Lateranus. 

In th*year 378 they proposed the three following roga- 
tions. 

1. Instead of consular tribunes, there shall in future be 
consuls, one of whom shall of necessity be a plebeian, 

2. No one shall possess more than five hundred jugers 
of arable or plantation land in the domain, {ager publicus,) 
nor feed more than one hundred head of large and five hun- 
dred of small cattle on the public pasture. Every possessor 
must pay the state annually the tenth bushel off his corn- 
land, the fifth of the produce of his plantation-land, and so 
much a head grazing-money for his cattle. , He shall also 
employ freemen as laborers in proportion to his land. 

3. The interest already paid on debts shall be deducted 
from the principal, and the residue be paid in three equal 
annual instalments. 

There is no reason to suppose that the authors of these 
measures, which were to infuse new life and energy into 
the state, were influenced by any but the best motives ; but 
patrician malignity, and that ignoble spirit which loves to as- 
sign a paltry motive for even the most glorious actions, in- 
vented the following tale. 

M. Fabius Ambustus had two daughters, one of whom was 
married to Ser. Sulpicius, a patrician and consular tribune 
for the year 378; the other to C. Licinius Stolo, a wealthy 
plebeian. One day, while the younger Fabia was visiting 
her sister, Sulpicius returned from the Forum, and the lictor, 
as was usual, smote the door with his rod that it might be 
opened. The visitor, unused to such ceremony in her 
modest plebeian abode, started, and her sister smiled in pity 
of her ignorance. She said nothing, but the matter sank 
deep in her mind ; her father, observing her defected, in- 
quired the cause ; and having drawn it from her, assured 
her that she should be on an equality with her sister ; and he, 
Licinius, and Sextius forthwith began to concert measures 
for effecting what he proposed.* 

The struggle lasted five years.t The patricians had not 

* Fabius had been a consular tribune within the last four years. 
How then could his daughter be ignorant of the pomp of the ofRce ? 
Moreover, there was nothing to prevent Licinius from being one him- 
self, as the office was open to plebeians. 

t Livy makes it last ten years, and the city in consequence be in a 



THE LICINIAN ROGATIONS. 123 

now, as heretofore, the Latins, Hernicans, and Volscians to 
call to their aid ; neither had they large bodies of clients at 
their devotion. They therefore sought to gain the other trib- 
unes, by representing the mischievous nature of the bills : 
and they succeeded so well, that eight of the college forbade 
them to be read. Licinius and Sextius retaliated by impeding 
the election of consular tribunes. They were themselves re- 
elected year after year, and they never permitted the election 
of consular tribunes, unless when the state was in danger 
from its foreign enemies. In 381, the opposition in the col- 
lege was reduced to five, and these wavering : the next year 
(382) the tribunes were unanimous, and the only resource of 
the oligarchs lay in the dictatorship. Camillus was appoint- 
ed : and when the tribes were beginning to vote, he entered 
the Forum, and commanded them to disperse. The tribunes 
calmly proposed a fine of 500,000 asses on him if he should 
act as dictator. Camillus saw that the magic power of the 
dictatorial name was gone, and he laid down his office. 
The senate appointed P. Manlius to succeed ; and he named 
C. Licinius, a plebeian, master of the horse. It was agreed 
to augment the number of the keepers of the Sibylline books 
to ten, one half to be plebeians ; and, the dictator not impeding 
the people, with their wonted short-sightedness and ingrati- 
tude were beginning to vote the two last rogations, which con- 
cerned themselves most nearly ; but Licinius, telling them they 
must eat if they would drink,* incorporated the three bills in 
one, and would have all or none. In 383 (388) the bills passed 
the tribes ; but Camillus was again made dictator against 
the people. The tribunes sent their officers to arrest him ; 
he saw the inutility of further resistance, and the senate and 
curies gave their assent to the law. L. Sextius, being ap- 
pointed plebeian consul, a last eifort was made by the curies, 
who refused to confirm him. The people lost all patience, 

state of complete anarchy, without any supreme magistrates, for five 
years, — a condition of things wliich is utterly impossible. The cause 
of this is, that the capture of Rome b}^ the Gauls, which really occur- 
red in Ol. 99, 3, was supposed to have happened in Ol. 98, 1, the date 
which the Greek chronologers gave for the descent of the Gauls into 
Italy ; and to reconcile the Roman Fasti with this, it was necessary to 
suppose that five years had passed without magistrates ; and it was 
assumed that this must have been during the disputes on the Licinian 
rogations. Another year was put m on another occasion, so that the 
dates henceforth are five, from 439, six years in advance ; the death 
of Caesar, therefore, was in 702, not 708 ; the birth of Christ in 746, 
not 752. See Niebuhr, ii. 553 — 567. 

Dion, fragm. xxxiii. ^.^»^ ,., 



124 HISTORY OF ROME. 

seized their arms, and retired to the Aventine.* The ven- 
erable Camillus, weary of civil discord, became the mediator 
of peace, and vowed a temple to Concord. The people 
consented that the city-praetorship should be confined to the 
houses, as a curule dignity coordinate with the consulate.t 
The office of curule sediles, to be filled in alternate years 
by two patricians and two plebeians, was instituted; and 
one day for the plebeians, as being now an integrant part of 
the nation, was added to the three of the Great Games. The 
centuries, to reward the illustrious Camillus, elected his son 
M. Furius the first city-preetor. 

The passing of the Licinian laws may be regarded as the 
termination of the struggle which had been going on for 
nearly a century and a half between the orders. In the 
whole course of history there is perhaps nothing to be found, 
more deserving of admiration than the conduct of the ple- 
beians throughout the entire contest ; no violence, no mur- 
ders, no illegal acts on their part are to be discerned, though 
the annals whence we derive our knowledge of it were drawn 
up and kept by the opposite party. One is naturally led to 
inquire into the causes of this moderation ; and they will 
perhaps be found to be as follows. In the first place, that 
steadiness and spirit of obedience to law and authority, which 
seems to have belonged to the Roman character while the 
nation continued pure and unmixed ; next, the fact that the 
plebeians were, at this time, composed of small landed pro- 
prietors, living frugally and industriously on their little farms, 
and visiting the city only on market-days. But the chief 
cause was, that they acted under the guidance of their nat- 
ural leaders, their nobility and gentry, and not of brawling 
demagogues; for the Licinii, the Icilii, the Junii, and others 
were, in birth and wealth, the fellows of theduinctii and the 
Manlii, who excluded them from the high offices in the state. 
It was, in fact, a part of the fortune of Rome, that she never 
was afflicted with the scourge of the selfish, low-born, lying, 
arrogant demagogues, the curse of the Grecian republics. 
When she was doomed to have her demagogues also, they 
were beasts of prey of a higher order, of her noblest and most 
ancient patrician houses, the Cornelii, the Julii, the Claudii, 
who, disdaining to fawn on and flatter the electors whom 

* Ovid, Fasti, i. 643. 

t The curule magistrates were so named as being allowed to go to 
the senate-house in a chariot, {currus ;) their movable seat {sella cu- 
rulis) was taken out, and carried in after them. Gellius, iii. 18 



THE L.ICINIAN ROGATIONS. 125 

they despised, purchased their venal votes, or terrified them, 
and carried their measures by the swords of armed bandits. 
But these unhappy times are yet far off; two centuries of 
glory are to come before we arrive at them. To return to 
our narrative. , 

In the two following years, (390, 391,) Rome was severely 
afflicted by a pestilence, which carried off numbers of all 
orders : among them was the venerable M. Furius Camillus, 
the second founder, as hewas styled, of the city, a man who 
though his deeds have been magnified by fiction, must have 
been really one of the greatest that even Rome ever saw. 
As a means of appeasing the divine wrath, a lectisternium* 
was made for the third time, and stage-plays were celebrated, 
the actors being fetched from Etruria. The Tiber also rose 
at this time and inundated the city. 

It had been an old custom at Rome, that, on the Ides of 
September, the chief magistrate should drive a nail into the 
right side of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. The rea- 
son of this practice was, that a regular account might be kept 
of the years. It had, however, been for some time intermit- 
ted ; but it being given out (392) that a plague had once 
ceased when a dictator drove the nail, the senate seized the 
opportunity of making an attempt to get rid of the late laws, 
and L. Manlius Iraperiosus was named dictator. Having 
driven the nail, he commenced a levy against the Herni- 
cans; but the tribunes forced him to desist and abdicate; 
and the next year (393) the tribune, M. Pomponius, im- 
peached him for his harshness and cruelty in the levy. One 
charge on which the tribune dwelt was his keeping his son, 
merely for a defect in his speech, at work in the country, 
among his slaves. The young man, when he heard of this 
charge against his parent, armed himself with a knife, and 
coming early one morning into the city, went* straight to 
the tribune's house. On telling his name he was admitted ; 
at his desire all were ordered to withdraw, the tribune nat- 
urally thinking he was come to give him some important 
information. Manlius then drawing his knife, menaced him 
with instant death if he did not swear to drop the prosecution. 
The terrified tribune swore; the charge against Manlius was 
not proceeded in ; and the people, to show their admiration 
of his filial piety, elected the young man one of-the legion- 
ary tribunes for the year. 

* That is, exposing the images of the gods in public. 
11* 



126 HISTORY OF ROME. 

The following romantic act is also placed in this year. 
A great chasm opened in the middle of the Forum ; to fill it 
up was found to be impossible ; the soothsayers announced 
that it would only close when it contained what Rome pos- 
sessed of jnost value, and that then the duration of the state 
would be perpetual. While all were in doubt and perplexity, 
a gallant youth, named M. Curtius, demanded if Rome had 
any thing more precious than arms and valor. He then 
mounted his horse, fully caparisoned, and while all gazed 
in silence, regarding now the Capitol and the temples of 
the gods, now the chasm, he solemnly devoted himself for 
the weal of Rome; then giving his horse the spurs, he 
plunged into the gulf and disappeared ; the people poured in 
fruits and other offerings, and the yawning chasm at length 
closed.* 

A war, the cause of which is not assigned, being now de- 
clared against the Hernicans, the plebeian consul L. Genucius 
invaded their territory. But he let himself be surprised, his 
soldiers fled, and he himself was slain. The victorious Her- 
nicans advanced to assail the camp : but the soldiers, en- 
couraged and headed by the legate C. Sulpicius, made a sal- 
ly and drove them oft At Rome the news of the defeat 
and death of the consul gave the utmost joy to the patricians. 
" This comes," they cried, "of polluting the auspices: men 
miofht be insulted and trifled with, not so the immortal 
gods." Ap. Claudius was forthwith created dictator, and 
having levied an army he went and joined that under Sul- 
picius. The Hernicans on their side strained every nerve ; 
all of the military age were summoned to the field ; eight co- 
horts, of four hundred men each, of chosen youths, with 
double pay and a promise of future immunity from service if 
victorious, stood in the front of their line. TJie courage, 
skill, and discipline of the two now adverse peoples were 
equal. The battle was long and obstinate : the Roman knights 
had to dismount and fight in the front. The conflict end- 
ed only with the night ; a dubious victory remained with the 
Romans, who had lost one fourth of their men and several 
of their knights. Next day the Hernicans abandoned their 

* The legend was evidently invented to give an origin to the Lacus 
Curtius, as a part of the Forum was named. The historian Piso, who 
sought to rationahze all the legends of the old history, said that it was 
so named from Mettus Curtius, a Sabine, who in the war between 
Romulus and Tatius, plunged with his horse into the lake which then 
occupied that place. 



GALLIC AND TUSCAN WARS. ' 127 

camp ; the Romans were too much exhausted to pursue, but 
the colonists of Signia fell on and routed them. The follow- 
ing year (394) the Romans ravaged their lands with impuni- 
ty, and took their town of Ferentinum. As the legions were 
returning, the Tiburtines closed their gates against them, 
which gave occasion to a war with this people. 

The Gauls, owing most probably to the influx of new 
hordes from home, had for many years spread their ravages 
to the very utmost point of Italy. Latium suffered with the 
rest ; and a Gallic army is said to have appeared at this time 
on the Anio. T. Q,uinctiusPennus, the dictator, led an army 
against them. While they stood opposite each other, a Gaul 
of gigantic stature advanced on the bridge, and challenged 
any Roman to engage him. T. Manlius (he who had saved 
his father) then went to the dictator and craved permission to 
meet the boastful foe. Leave was freely granted ; his com- 
rades armed him and led him against the huge Gaul, who put 
out his tongue in derision of the pigmy champion. In the 
combat the Gaul made huge cuts with his heavy broadsword ; 
the Roman, running in, threw up the bottom of the foeman's 
great shield with his own, and, getting inside of it, stabbed 
him again and again in the belly, till he fell like a mountain. 
He took nothing from him save his golden collar, (torquis,) 
whence he derived the nameof Torquatus.* The Gauls, dis- 
mayed at the fall of their champion, broke up in the night 
and retired to Tiber. 

The following year (395) the Gauls again appeared, and, 
united with the Tiburtines, committed great ravages in La- 
tium ; they even advanced to the walls of Rome, where Q,. 
Servilius Ahala was made dictator, and a battle was fought 
before the Colline gate. The loss on both sides was consid- 
erable, but the Gauls were driven off, and as they approached 
Tibur they were attacked by the consul C. Pcetelius and the 
victory completed. 

Two years after (397) the Gauls came again into Latium 
and encamped at Pedum. The common danger caused a re- 
newal of the ancient alliance between Rome and Latium, and 
a combined army, under the dictator C. Sulpicius, took the 
field. The dictator, loth to risk a battle when the enemy 
might be overcome more surely by delay, encamped in a 
strong position, which the Gauls did not venture to attack ; 

* The legend, which reminds one of David and Goliath, was ap- 
parently invented to account for the name. The tale how our own 
C(Eur ,de Lion " robbed the lion of his heart," is a more modern instance 
of this Dractice. 



128 HISTORY OF ROME. 

but his own soldiers grew impatient, and demanded to be led 
to battle. Sulpicius, fearing he might not be able to restrain 
them, complied ; but the event justified his caution ; the le- 
gions were driven back, and but for the efforts of despair 
which they made at the call of the dictator, and a stratagem 
which he had devised, they would have sustained a defeat. 
He had the night before sent off all the horse-boys, armed 
and mounted on mules, into the woods on the hills over his 
camp, and directed them when he made a signal to show 
themselves and advance toward that of the enemy. He now 
made the signal ; the Gauls, fearing to be cut off from their 
camp, fell back ; the Romans pressed on them, and they 
broke and made for the woods, where great numbers of 
them were slain. The gold found in their camp was walled 
up in the Capitol, and the dictator triumphed as he deserved. 

But while the arms of Rome were thus fortunate under 
the dictator, they sustained a disgrace under the consul C. 
Fabius in Etruria ; for the Tarquinians, with vvhom there now 
was war, gave him a defeat ; and, having taken three hun- 
dred and seven Roman soldiers, they offered them as victims* 
to their gods. The Roman territory to the south was also 
ravaged by the Volscians of Velitrae and Privernum ; but the 
next year (398) the Privernates were defeated under their 
own walls by the consul C. Marcius. 

This year was rendered memorable by the condemnation 
of C. Licinius for the transgression of his own law. He was 
fined 10,000 asses for having one thousand jugers of the pub- 
lic land, one half being held in the name of his son whom he 
had emancipated for the purpose of eluding the law. By a 
rogation of the tribunes M. Duilius and L. Mgenius, the rate 
of interest was reduced to ten per cent., [fcenus unciarium ;) 
an attempt was made also by the patricians to have laws 
passed away from the city, by the soldiers when under the 
military oath. The consul Cn. Manlius held in the camp at 
Sutrium an assembly of the tribes, and passed a law, impo- 
sing an ad valorem duty of five per cent, on the emancipation 
of slaves. The law was a good one; the senate readily 
gave it their sanction ; but the tribunes saw their ulterior ob- 
ject, and made it capital to hold such assemblies in future. 

In 899 the consul M. Fabius engaged a combined army 
of the Tarquinians and Faliscans. The Tuscan Lucumones, 
we are told, rushed out in front of their line, shaking serpents 
and waving lighted torches. This novel apparition at first 
daunted the Romans ; but they soon shook off the terrors of 
superstition, routed their foes, and took their camp^ It 



GALLIC AND TUSCAN WARS. 129 

would however appear that the victory was in reality on the 
side of the Tuscans, for they soon after entered the Salinse, 
and it was found necessary to appoint a dictator. The ple- 
beian consul M. Popillius Lcsnas named the plebeian C. Mar- 
cius Rutilus, who made another plebeian, C. Plautius, master 
of the horse. The patricians refused the dictator all the 
means of forming an army, but the people gave him every 
thing he required ; he defeated the enemy, took eight thou- 
sand prisoners, and triumphed without the consefit of the 
patricians. 

As the alliance had been renewed with the Latins and 
Hernicans, the oligarchs resolved to make a bold effort to 
get rid of the Licinian law ; and for five successive years, by 
means of interrexes and dictators, the consuls were, in spite 
of the tribunes, both patricians. During this period nothing 
of note occurred except a defeat of the Tarquinians in 401 ; 
on which occasion three hundred and fifty-eight of the prin- 
cipal men among the captives were brought to Rome and 
put to death in the Forum, in retaliation of their barbarity 
in the year 397. The Caerites also, being accused of shar- 
ing in the war, only escaped the vengeance of Rome by the 
surrender of one half of their domain. They were then 
granted a truce for one hundred years. 

At length the patricians were obliged to give way, and 
(403) C. Marcius Rutilus, the plebeian, became the colleague 
^of a Valerius in the consulate. 

It might be expected from the names of the consuls that 
something would be done to relieve the distress of the peo- 
ple. Accordingly, five commissioners, (quinqueviri mensarii,) 
two patricians and three plebeians, were appointed for the 
liquidation of debts. Money was advanced out of the treasu- 
ry to those who could give good security ; if any one preferred 
making his property over to his creditors, it was valued and 
transferred to them. As many objects thus changed hands, a 
new census was required, and in spite of all the efforts of the 
patricians, who had recovered the whole consulate this year, 
(404,) C. Marcius Rutilus was chosen the first plebeian censor. 

In the year 405 the Gauls poured once more into Latium. 
The consul M. Popillius Lsenas, a plebeian, marched against 
them, and took a position on a strong eminence. The Tri- 
arians commenced fortifying a camp ; the rest of the cohorts 
were drawn out ; the Gauls charged up-hill ; the consul re- 
ceived a slight wound and had to retire ; this damped the 
spirit of his men, but he soon returned and restored the battle ; 

Q 



130 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the Gauls were driven down into the plain, and they aban- 
doned their camp and fled to the Alban mountains, whence 
they spread their ravages over the country during the follow- 
ing winter. 

The plebeian consul triumphed ; but L. Furius Camillus, 
being made dictator for the elections, had the audacity to 
nominate himself and another patrician for the ensuing year, 
(406,) and the people were obliged to acquiesce. A large 
army, composed of Latins and Romans, was formed, which 
the consul Camillus led into the Pomptine district, where 
the Gauls now were. While the two armies lay opposite 
each other, a huge Gallic chief advanced and challenged any 
Roman to engao-e him in sino-le combat. M. Valerius, a mil- 
itary tribune, a young man of three-and-twenty years, accept- 
ed the challenge. Just as the combat began, a raven {corvus) 
came and perched on the Roman's head, and during the fight 
he continually assailed with his beak and claws the face and 
eyes of the foeman, whom therefore Valerius easily slew; 
the raven then rose, and flying to the east was soon out of 
sight. When the victor went to strip the slain, the nearest 
Gauls advanced to prevent him ; this brought on a general 
action ; the Gauls were worsted and retired, and they never 
again appeared in Latium. Valerius, who was henceforth 
named Corvus,* was rewarded by the consul with ten oxen 
and a golden crown, and when T. Manlius Torquatus was 
made dictator for the elections, he named him c6nsul with 
the plebeian M. Popillius Lsenas. 

In the consulate of T. Manlius Torquatus and C. Plautius, 
(408,) a further effort was made to relieve the debtors. In- 
terest was reduced to five per cent., (fcBnus semiunciarium^ 
and debts were to be paid in four equal instalments, one 
down, and the remainder in one, two, and three years. It 
is not unHkely that one of the various reductions of the 
weight of the as took place at this time. 

In the year 404 a truce for forty years had been made 
with the Faliscans and the Tarquinians ; the ancient league, 
as we have seen, had been renewed with the Latins and Her- 
nicans ; all was quiet on the side of the Volscians, when 
Rome had to enter the lists with a foe more formidable than 
any she had yet encountered. 

* The legend, like that of Torqu&tus, was invented to account for the 
name. The cognomen \v3iS not new } we find in the Fasti for 363 an 
Aquilius and a Fulvius Corvus. 



FIRST SAMNITE WAR. 131 



CHAPTER VI. 

FIRST SAMNITE WAR. MUTINY IN THE ROMAN ARMY. 

PEACE WITH THE SAMNITES. LATIN WAR. MANLIUS PUT 

TO DEATH BY HIS FATHER. BATTLE OF VESUVIUS, AND 

SELF-DEVOTION OF DECIUS. REDUCTION OF LATIUM. 

PUBLILIAN LAWS. SECOND SAMNITE WAR. SEVERITY OP 

THE DICTATOR PAPIRIUS. SURRENDER AT THE CAUDINE 

FORKS. CAPTURE OF SORA. TUSCAN WAR. PASSAGE OF 

THE CIMINIAN WOOD. SAMNITE AND TUSCAN WARS. 

PEACE WITH THE SAMNITES. 

In the year 332 a body of the Samnites had descended from 
their mountains into the rich plains of Campania. By a 
composition they became the populus or ruling order in the 
city of Vulturnum, (henceforth named Capua,) a city equal in 
size to Rome orVeii, and at all times noted for its luxury and 
its relaxing effects on the minds of those who abode in it. The 
Samnites of the city and plain gradually changed their man- 
ners, and became estranged from their rugged mountain 
brethren. In 412 these last, urged by their adventurous spirit 
or the pressure of population, came down on the country be- 
tween the Vulturnus and the Liris, inhabited by the Sidi- 
cinians and other Ausonian peoples. The Sidicinians applied 
to the Campanians for aid, and the militia' of Capua took 
the field against the Samnites ; but the hardy mountaineers 
easily routed them before the walls of Teanum, and 
then transferring the war to Campania, came and encamped 
on Mount Tifata, which overhangs Capua. The plundering 
of their lands, the burning of their houses and homesteads, 
drew the Campanians again to the field ; but again they were 
defeated, and were now shut up in their town. Finding 
their own strength insufficient they looked abroad for aid, 
and none appearing so well able to afford it as the triple fed- 
eration south of the Tiber, their envoys appeared at Rome. 
A treaty of alliance was readily formed with them ; and as 
there had been since 401 an alliance between the Romans 
and Samnites, envoys weres ent to inform them of this new 
treaty, and to require them to abstain from hostilities against 
the allies of the federation. The Samnites looked on this 
as a breach of treaty, and in the presence of the Roman en- 
voys orders were given to lead the troops into Campania. 



133 HISTORY OF ROME. 

War against the Samnites was therefore declared at Rome, 
and the consuls ordered to take the field. 

The consul M. Valerius Corvus led his legions into Cam- 
pania, where, probably in consequence of some reverses of 
which we are not informed, he encamped on the side of 
Mount Gaurus over Cumse. The Samnite army came full 
of confidence ; the consul led out his troops, and a battle 
commenced, highly important in the history of the world, as 
the prelude of those which were to decide whether the em 
pire of Italy and of the world was reserved for Rome or for 
Samnium. 

The two armies were equal in courage, and similarly armed 
and arrayed ; that of the Samnites consisted entirely of in- 
fantry, and the horse, which the consul sent first into action, 
could make no impression on its firm ranks. He then or- 
dered the horse to fall aside to the wings, and led on the le- 
gions in person. The fight was most obstinate : each seemed 
resolved to die rather than yield : at length a desperate 
effort of despair on the part of the Romans drove the Sam- 
nites back; they wavered, broke, and fled to their intrenched 
camp, which they abandoned in the night and fell back 
to Suessula. They declared to those who asked why they 
had fled, that the eyes of the Romans seemed to be on fire, 
and their gestures those of madmen, so that they could not 
stand before them. 

The other consul, A. Cornelius Cossus, having been direct- 
ed to invade Samnium, led his army to Saticula, the nearest 
Samnite t5wn to Capua. The Apennines in this part run, 
in parallel ranges, enclosing fertile valleys, from north to 
south, and the road to Beneventum passes over them. The 
consul, advancing carelessly, had crossed the first range, and 
his line of march had reached the valley, when on looking 
back they saw the wooded heights behind them occupied by 
a Samnite army : to advance was dangerous, retreat seemed 
impossible. In this perplexity a tribune named P. Decius 
proposed to occupy with the Principes and Hastates of one 
legion (that is, 1600 men) a height over the way along 
which the Samnites were coming. The consul gave permis- 
sion ; Decius seized the height, which he maintained against 
all the efforts of the enemy till the favorable moment was lost, 
and the consul had led back his army and gained, the ridge. 
When night came, the Samnites encamped about the hill 
and went to sleep ; in the second watch Decius led down his 
men in silence, and they took their way through the midst of 



FIRST SAMNITE WAR. 133 

the slumbering foes. They had gotten half through, when 
one of the Romans in stepping over the Samnites struck 
against a shield ; the noise awoke those at hand ; the alarm 
spread ; the Romans then raised a shout, fell on all they met, 
and got off without loss. They reached their own camp 
while it was yet night, but they halted outside of it till the day 
was come. At dawn, when their presence was announced, 
all poured forth to greet them, and Decius was led in tri- 
umph through the camp to the consul, who began to extol 
his deeds ; but Decius interrupted him, saying that now was 
the time to take the enemy by surprise. The army was led 
out, and the scattered Samnites were fallen on and routed 
with great slaughter. After the victory the consul gave De- 
cius a golden crown and a hundred oxen, one of which was 
white with gilded horns; this Decius offered in sacrifice to 
Father Mars, the rest he gave to his comrades in peril, and 
each soldier presented them with a pound of corn and a pint 
(sextarius) of wine, while the consul, giving them each an 
ox and two garments, assured them of a double allowance of 
corn in future. The army further wove the obsidional crown 
of grass and placed it on the brows of Decius, and a similar - 
crown was bestowed on him by his own men. Such were 
the generous arts by which Rome fostered the heroic spirit 
in her sons ! 

Meantime the Samnites at Suessula had been largely rein- 
forced, and they spread their ravages over Campania. The 
two consular armies being united under Valerius, came and 
encamped hard by them, and as Valerius had left all the bag- 
gage and camp-followers behind, the Roman army occupied 
a much smaller camp than was usual to their numbers. De- 
ceived by the size of their camp the Samnites clamored to 
storm it, but the caution of their leaders withheld them. 
Necessity soon compelled them to scour the country in quest 
of provisions, and emboldened by the consul's inactivity they 
went to greater and greater distances. This was what Vale- 
rius waited for ; he suddenly assailed and took their camp, 
which was but slightly guarded ; then leaving two legions to 
keep it, he divided the rest of the army, and falling on the scat- ' 
tered Samnites, cut them every where to pieces. The shields 
of the slain and fugitives amounted, we are told, to 40,000, 
the captured standards to 170. Both consuls triumphed. 

While the Roman arms were thus engaged in Campania, 
the Latins invaded the territory of the Pelignians, the kins- 
men and allies of the Samnites. 
12 



134 HISTORY OF ROME. 

No military events are recorded of the year 413, but a 
strange tale of an insurrection of the Roman army has been 
handed down. The tale runs thus : The Roman soldiers 
who in 412 had been left to winter in Capua, corrupted by 
the luxury which they there witnessed and enjoyed, formed 
the nefarious plan of massacring the inhabitants, and seizing 
the town. Their projects had not ripened when C. Marcius 
Rutilus, the consul for 413, came to take the command. He 
first, to keep them quiet, gave out that the troops were to be 
quartered in Capua the following winter also ; then noting 
the ringleaders, he sent them home under various pretexts, 
and gave furloughs to any that asked for them : his colleague, 
Q.. Servilius Ahala, took care to detain all who came to Rome. 
The stratagem succeeded for some time ; at length the 
soldiers perceived that none of their comrades came back ; 
a cohort that was going home on furlough halted at Lautulas,* 
a narrow pass between the sea and the mountains east of 
Tarracina ; here it was joined by all who were going home 
singly on leave, and the whqle number soon equalled that of 
an army. They broke up, and marching for Rome encamped 
under Alba Longa. Feeling their want of a leader, and 
learning that T. duinctius, a distinguished patrician, who 
being lame of one leg from a wound had retired from the city, 
was living on his farm in the Tusculan, they sent a party by 
night, who seized him in his bed, and gave him the option 
of his death or becoming their commander ; he came to the 
camp, was saluted as general, and desired to lead them to 
Rome. Eight miles from the city they were met by an army 
led by the dictator M. Valerius Corvus. Each side shud- 
dered at the thought of civil war, and readily agreed to a 
conference. The mutineers consented to intrust their cause 
to the dictator, whose name was a sufficient security. He 
rode back to the city, and at his desire the senate and curies 
decreed that none should be punished for, or even reproached 
with, their share in the mutiny, that no soldier's name should 
be struck out of the roll without his own consent, that no 
one who had been a tribune should be made a centurion, 
and that the pay of the knights (as they had refused to join 
in the mutiny) should be reduced. And thus this formidable 
mutiny commenced in crime, and ended in — nothing! 
Another and a far more probable account says that the 

* There were probably warm springs here ; whence the name, like 
ThermopylsB, which it resembles in situation. (Hist, of Greece, p. 110,) 



LATIN WAR. 135 

insurrection broke out in the city, where the plebeians took 
arms, and having seized C. Manlius in the night, and forced 
hini to be their leader, went out and encamped four miles 
from the city, where, as it would seem, they were joined by 
the army from Campania. The consuls raised an army and 
advanced against them ; but when the two armies met, that 
of the consuls saluted the insurgents, and the soldiers em- 
braced one another. The consuls then advised the senate 
to comply with the desires of the people, and peace was ef- 
fected. 

The still existing weight of debt seems to have been the 
cause of this secession also, and a cancel of debts to have 
been a condition of the peace. Lending on interest at all is 
said to have been prohibited at this time by a plebiscitu?n, or 
decree of the tribes ; and others were passed forbidding any 
one to hold the same office till after an interval of ten years, 
or to hold two offices at the same time. It was also decreed 
that both the consuls might be plebeians. The name of the 
tribune L. Genucius being mentioned, it is probable that he 
was the author of the new laws. 

The following year (414) peace was made with the 
Samnites, on the light condition of their giving a year's pay, 
and three months' provisions to the Roman army ; and they 
were allowed to make war on the Sidicinians. This moder- 
ation on the side of the Romans might cause surprise, were 
it not that we know they now apprehended a conflict with a 
powerful people. 

The Sidicinians and Campanians, on being thus aban- 
doned, put themselves under the protection of the Latins, 
with whom the Volscians also formed an alliance. The 
Hernicans adhered to the Romans, and the Samnites also 
became their allies. War between Rome and Latium now 
seemed inevitable, and T. Manlius Torquatus, and P. Decius 
Mus * were made consuls for 415 with a view to it. But the 
Latins would first try the path of peace and accommodation ; 
and at the call, it is said, of the Roman senate, their two 
praetors, and ten principal senators, repaired to Rome. Au- 
dience was given them on the Capitol, and nothing could be 
more reasonable than their demands. Though the Latins 
were now the more numerous people of the two, they only 
required a union of perfect equality, — one of the consuls 
and one half the senate to be Latins, while Rome should be 

* This was the Decius who had saved the army in the campaign of 412. 



136 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the seat of government, and Romans the name of the united 
nation. But the senate exclaimed against the unheard-of 
extravagance of these demands, the gods vt^ere invoked as 
witnesses of this scandalous breach of faith, and the consul 
Manlius vow^ed that if they consented to be thus dictated to, 
he would come girt with his sword into the senate-house, and 
slay the first Latin he saw there. Tradition said that when 
the gods were appealed to, and the Latin praetor Annius 
spoke with contempt of the Roman Jupiter, loud claps of 
thunder and a sudden storm of wind and rain told the anger 
of the deity, and as Annius went off full of rage, he tumbled 
down the flight of steps and lay lifeless at the bottom. It 
was with difficulty that the magistrates saved the other envoys 
from the fury of the people. War was forthwith declared, 
and the consular armies were levied. 

As the Latin legions were now in Campania, the Romans 
instead of entering Latium took a circuit through the coun- 
try of the Sabines, Marsians, and Pelignians, and being 
joined by the Samnites, and probably the Hernicans, came 
and encamped before the Latins near Capua. Here a dream 
presented itself to the consuls: the form of a man, of size 
more than human, appeared to each, and announced that the 
general on one side, the army on the other, was due to the 
Manes and Mother Earth ; of whichever people the general 
should devote himself and the adverse legions, theirs would 
be the victory. The victims when slain portending the same, 
the consuls announced, in presence of their officers, that he 
of them whose forces first began to yield would devote him- 
self for Rome. 

To restore strict discipline and to prevent any treachery, 
the consul forbade, under pain of death, any single combats 
with the enemy. One day the son of the consul Manlius 
chanced with his troop of horse to come near to where the 
Tusculan horse was stationed, whose commander, Geminus 
Metius, knowing young Manlius, challenged him to a single 
combat. Shame and indignation overpowered the sense of 
duty in the mind of the Roman; they ran against each 
other, and the Tusculan fell ; the victor, bearing the bloody 
spoils, returned to the camp and came with them to his father. 
The consul said nothing, but forthwith called an assembly 
of the army; then, reproaching his son with his breach of 
discipline, he ordered the lictor to lay hold of him and bind 
him to the stake. The assembly stood mute with horror ; 
but, when the axe fell, and the blocd of the gallant youth 



SELF-DEVOTION OF DECIUS. 137 

gushed forth, bitter lamentation, mingled with curses on the 
ruthless sire, arose. They took up the body of the slain, and 
buried it, without the camp, covered with th^ spoils he had 
won ; and when, after the war, Manlius entered Rome in 
triumph, the young men would not go forth to receive him, 
and throughout life he was to them an object of hatred and 
aversion. 

The war between Rome and Latium was little less than 
civil ; the soldiers and officers had for years served together 
in the same companies, and they were all acquainted. They 
now stood in battle array, opposite each other, at the foot of 
Mount Vesuvius, the Samnites and Hernicans being opposed 
to the Oscan allies of the Latins, Both the consuls sacrificed 
before the battle ; the entrails of the victim offered by Decius 
portended misfortune, but hearing that the signs boded well 
to Manlius, " 'Tis well," said he, " if my colleague has good 
signs." In the battle, the left wing, led by Decius, was giving 
way ; the consul saw that his hour was come ; he called 
aloud for M. Valerius, the Pontifex Maxiraus, and standing 
on a naked weapon, clad in his consular robe, his head veiled, 
and his hand on his chin, he repeated after the pontiff the 
form of devotion.* He then sent the lictors to announce to 
Manlius what he had done, and girding his gown tightly 
round him,t and mounting his horse, he rushed into the 
midst of the enemies. He seemed a destructive spirit sent 
from heaven ; wherever he came he carried dismay and death ; 
at length he fell, covered with wounds. The ardor of the 
Roman soldiers revived, and the skill of Manlius secured the 
victory. When the front ranks {Antesignani) of both armies 
were wearied, he ordered th6 Accensi to advance ; the Latins 
then sent forward their Triarians ; and when these were 
wearied, the consul ordered the Roman Triarians to rise and 
advance. The Latins having no fresh troops to oppose to them 
were speedily defeated, and so great was the slaughter that 

* The form of devotion was as follows : " Janus, Jupiter, Father 
Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, ye nine gods, (JVovensiles,) ye Indigites, 
ye gods who have power over us and our enemies, ye gods of the dead, 
you I pray, worship, implore that ye will give strength and victory to 
the Roman people and the Quirites, and that ye will send terror, fear, 
and death to the enemies of the Roman people and the Quirites. As I 
have spoken so do I devote myself for the republic, the army, legions 
and auxiliaries of the Roman people and Quirites, and with me the 
legions and auxiliaries of the enemy to the gods of the dead and to 
Mother Earth.". 

t The Gabine cincture. 

12* R 



138 HISTORY OF ROME. 

but one fourth of their army escaped. Next day the body 
of the consul Decius was found amidst heaps of slain, and 
magnificently interred. 

The Latins fled to the town of Vescia, and, by the advice 
of their praetor Numisius, a general levy was made in Latium, 
with which, in reliance on the reduced state of the Roman 
army, he ventured to give the consul battle at Trifanum^ 
between Sinuessa and Minturnse, on the other side of the 
Liris, The rout of the Latins was so complete, tliat few of 
the towns thought of resistance when the consul entered 
Latium. The Latin public land, two thirds of that of Priver- 
num, and the Falernian district of Campania, were seized 
for the Roman people, and assignments of 2f jugers on this 
side, 3^ on the other side of the Liris, were made to the poor 
plebeians, who murmured greatly at the large quantity that 
was reserved as domain. As the Campanian knights (1600 
in number) had remained faithful to Rome, to compensate 
them for the loss of the Falernian land, they were given the 
Roman municipium, and each assigned a rent-charge of 350 
denars a year on the state of Capua. 

The Latin and Volscian towns continued singly to resist, 
and the conquest was not completed till the year 417. Pru- 
dence and some moderatioji were requisite on the part of 
Rome, in order not to have rebellious subjects in the Latins. 
Citizenship therefore, in different degrees, was conferred 
upon them ; but they were forbidden to hold national diets, 
and commerce and intermarriage between the people of their 
different towns were prohibited. The principal families of 
Velitrse were forced to go and live beyond the Tiber, and 
their lands w^ere given to Roman colonists. Their ships of 
war were taken from the Antiates, who were forbidden to pos- 
sess any in future. Some of them were brought to Rome; 
the beaks {rostra) were cut off others, and the pulpit {sug- 
gestum) in the Forum adorned with them, whence it was 
named the Rostra. The municipium, such as the Latins had 
formerly had it, was given to the people of Capua, Cumse, 
Suessula, Fundi, and Formige. The Latin contingents in 
war were henceforth to serve under their own officers, apart 
from the legions. 

While the Roman dominion was thus extended without, 
wise and patriotic men of both orders saw the necessity of 
mternal concord, and of abolishing antiquated and now mis- 
chievous claims and pretensions. In 416, therefore, the 
patrician consul Tib. iEmilius named his plebeian colleague 



SECOND SABfNITE WAR. 139 

Q. Publilius dictator, who then brought forward the followino- 
laws to complete the constitution. 1. The patricians should 
give a previous consent to any law that was to be brouo-ht 
before the centuries. For as such a law must previously 
have passed the senate, and the centuries could make no 
alteration in it, and more wisdom was not likely to be found 
in the curies than in the senate and centuries united, their 
opposition could hardly have any ground but prejudice and 
spite. 2. The Plebiscita should be binding on all Quirites. 
The object of this law was the same, for as the people now 
occupied the place of the former Populus, and every measure 
was approved of and prepared in the senate, the leaving the 
power of rejecting it with the patricians was needless, and 
might be mischievous. 3. One of the censors should of 
necessity be a plebeian. The curies were induced, we know 
not how, to give their assent to these laws. Internal discord 
was now at an end, and the golden age of Roman heroism 
and virtue began. 

The affairs for the ten succeeding years are of comparative 
unimportance. The Romans and Samnites both knew that 
another war was inevitable, and they made the necessary 
preparations for it. In 428 the people of the Greek town of 
Paloeopolis, being in alliance with the Samnites, began to 
exercise hostilities against the Roman colonists in Campania. 
As they refused to give satisfaction, the consul Q,. Publilius 
Philo was sent against them, while his colleague, L. Cornelius 
Lentulus, watched the motions of the Samnites. Publilius 
encamped between Palgeopolis and its kindred town of Neaf)- 
olis, and on his sending word home that there was a large 
body of Samnite and Nolan troops in them, envoys were sent 
to Samnium to complain of this breach of treaty. The Sam- 
nites replied that those wer^ volunteers, over whom the state 
had no control; that they had not, as the Romans had 
alleged, excited the people of Fundi and Formiae to revolt, 
while the Romans had sent a colony to FregellaB, in a district 
which of right was theirs; that, in fine, there was no use in 
arguing or complaining when the plain between Capua and 
Suessula offered a space on which they might decide whose 
should be the empire of Italy. The Roman fetial then veiled 
his head, and with hands raised to heaven prayed the gods to 
prosper the arms and counsels of Rome if Tight was on her 
side ; if not, to blast and confound them. Right certainly was 
not on the side of Rome, for she had first violated the treaty ; 
but war was not to be averted, and it was now to begin. 



140 . HISTORY" OF ROME. 

A Roman army entered Samnium on the Volscian side, 
ravaged the country, and took some towns. Publilius' year 
having expired, his command was continued to him under 
the new title of Proconsul ; and soon a party in Neapolis, 
vreary of the insolence of the foreign soldiers, began to plot 
a surrender. While Nymphius, one of the leading men, in- 
duced the Samnites to go out of the town, to embark in the 
ships in the port, and make a descent on the coast of Latium, 
Charilaus, another of the party, closed the gate after them, 
and admitted the Romans at another. The Samnites instant- 
ly dispersed and fled home ; the Nolans retired from the town 
unmolested. 

A chief ally of the Samnites were the people of the Greek 
city of Tarentum ; on the other hand, their kinsmen, the 
Apulians and Lucanians, were in alliance with Rome. But 
in this year (429) a revolution, of the nature of which we 
are uninformed, took place in Lucania, the consequence of 
which was the subjection of the country to Samnium. A 
similar fate menaced the Apulians, if not aided ; but to reach 
Apulia it was necessary to pass through the Vestine country, 
the people of which (one of the Marsian confederacy) re- 
fused a passage. It was apprehended at Rome, that if the 
Vestinians were attacked, the other three states, who were 
now neutral, would take arms, and throw their weight into 
the Samnite scale, and their valor was well known ; but, 
on the other hand, the importance of Apulia, in a military 
point of view, was too great to allow it to be lost. The consul 
D. Junius Brutus accordingly led his army into the Vestine 
country : a hard-fought victory, and the capture of two of 
their towns, reduced the Vestinians to submission, and the 
other members of the league remained at peace. 

The other consul, L. Camillus^ fell sick as he was about 
to invade Samnium, and L. Papirius Cursor was made dicta- 
tor ; but as there was said to have been some error in the 
auspices, he was obliged to return to Rome to renew them. 
As he was departing he strictly charged Q,. Fabius, the 
master of the horse, whom he left in command, not to risk 
an action on any account during his absence. But, heedless 
of his orders, Fabius seized the first occasion of engaging 
the enemy, over whom he gained a complete victory. As 
soon as the dictator learned what had occurred, he hastened 
to the camp, breathing fury. Fabius, warned of his approach, 
besought the soldiers to protect him. Papirius came, ascend- 
ed his tribunal, summoned the master of the horse before 



SEVERITY OF THE DICTATOR PAPIRIUS. 141 

him, and demanded why he had disobeyed orders, and thus 
weakened the military discipline. His defence but irritated 
his judge the more ; the lictors approached and began to strip 
him for death ; he broke from them, and sought refuge 
among the Triarians : confusion arose : those nearest the 
tribunal prayed, the more remote menaced the dictator : the 
legates came round him, entreating him to defer his judg- 
ment till the next day ; he would not hear them. Night at 
length ended the contest. 

During the night Fabius fled to Rome, and by his father's 
advice made his complaint of the dictator to the assembled 
senate; but while he was speaking, Papirius, who had fol- 
lowed him from the camp with the utmost rapidity, entered, 
and ordered his lictors to seize him. The senate implored; 
but he was inexorable : the elder Fabius then appealed to 
the people, before whom he enlarged on the cruelty of the 
dictator. Every heart beat in unison with that of the time- 
honored father ; but when Papirius showed the rigorous 
necessity of upholding military discipline, by which the 
state was maintained, all were silent, from conviction. At 
length the people and their tribunes united with Fabius 
and the senate in supplication, and the dictator, deeming his 
authority sufficiently vindicated, granted life to his master 
of the horse. 

Papirius, when he returned to his army, gave the Samnites 
a decisive defeat ; and having divided the spoil among his 
soldiers to regain their favor, and granted a truce for a 
year to the enemy, on condition of their giving each soldier 
a garment and a year's pay, he returned to Rome and tri- 
umphed. 

The events of the next year (431) are dubious; but in 
432 the camp of the dictator, A. Cornelius Arvina, who had 
entered Samnium vt^ithout sufficient caution, was surprised 
by a superior force of the enemy. The day closed before 
an attack could be made, and in the night the dictator, 
leaving a number of fires burning in the camp, led away his 
legions in silence. But the enemy were on the alert, and 
their cavalry hung on the retiring army, to slacken its pace. 
With daybreak the Samnite infantry came up, and the dic- 
tator, finding further retreat impossible, drew his forces up 
in order of battle. A desperate conflict commenced ; during 
five hours neither side gave way an inch; the Samnite horse, 
seeing the baggage of the Ramans but slightly guarded, 
made for it, and began to plunder ; while thus engaged, they 



142 HISTORY or ROME. 

were fallen on and cut to pieces by the Roman horse, v/ho 
then turned and assailed the now unprotected rear of the 
Samnite infantry. The dictator urged his legions to new 
exertions ; the Samnites wavered, broke, and fled ; their gen- 
eral and thousands fell, and thousands were made captives. 

Meantime, on the side of Apulia an equally glorious vic- 
tory was gained by the consul Q,. Fabius ; and the spirit of 
the Samnites being now quite broken, they were anxious 
for peace on almost any terms. As it is usual with a peo- 
ple, when measures to which they have given their full and 
eager consent have failed, to throw the entire blame on 
their leaders, so now the Samnites cast all their misfortunes 
on Papius Brutulus, one of their principal men, and resolved 
to deliver him up to the Romans as the cause of the war. 
The noble Samnite saved himself from disgrace by a vol- 
untary death ; his lifeless corpse was carried to Rome ; the 
Roman prisoners, of whom there was a large number, were 
released, and gold sent to ransom the Samnites. The ut- 
most readiness to yield to all reasonable terms was evinced ; 
but nothing would content the haughty senate but the su- 
premacy,* and sooner than thus resign their national inde- 
pendence the Samnites resolved to dare and endure the 
uttermost. 

In the spring (433) the Roman legions, led by the con- 
suls T. Veturius and Sp. Postumius, encamped at Callatia 
in Campania, with the intention of directing their entire 
force against Middle Samnium. The Samnite general, C. 
Pontius, spread a false report that Nuceria, in Apulia, was 
hard pressed by a Samnite army, and on the point of sur- 
render, and the consuls resolved to attempt its relief with- 
out delay. They entered the Samnite country, and advanced 
heedlessly and incautiously. In the vicinity of the town of 
Caudium they reached the Caudine Forks, as a pass was 
named consisting of a narrow valley between two wooded 
mountains; a hollow way led into it at one end, and a nar- 
row path over a mountain, which closed it up, led out of 
it at the other end. Into these toils the consuls conducted 
their army ;" they saw nothing to alarm them till the head 
of the column came to the further end, and found the pas- 
sage stopped with rocks and trunks of trees, and on looking 
round beheld the hills occupied by soldiery. To advance 

* Answering to the hegemony of the Greeks. See Hist, of Greece 
passim. 



SURRENDER AT THE CAUDINE FORKS. 143 

or to retreat was now equally impossible; they threw up 
entrenchments in the valley, and remained there, the Sam- 
nites not attackins: them, in reliance on the aid of famine.* 
At length, when their food was spent and hunger began to 
be felt, they sent deputies to learn the will of the Samnite 
leaders. It is said that Pontius, on this occasion, sent for 
his father to advise him : this venerable old man, who, in 
high repute for wisdom, dwelt at Caudium, was conveyed to 
the camp in a wain, and his advice was either to let the 
Romans go free and uninjured, or totally to destroy the 
army. Pontius preferred a middle course, and the old man 
retired shedding tears at the misery he saw thence to come 
on his country. The terms accorded by Pontius were the 
restoration of the ancient alliance between Rome and Sam- 
nium ; the withdrawal of Roman colonies from places be- 
longing to the Samnites ; and the giving back all places to 
which they had a right. The arms and baggage of the 
•vanquished army were, as a matter of course, to be given up 
to the conquerors. H©w rarely has Rome ever granted a 
vanquished enemy terms so mild as these ! Yet the Roman 
historians had the audacity to talk of the insolence of the 
victorious Samnites ; and the Roman senate and people had 
the baseness, meanness, injustice, and barbarity to put to 
an ignominious death the noble Pontius twenty-seven years 
after ! 

These terms were sworn to by the consuls and their prin- 
cipal officers, and six hundred knights given as hostages till 
they should have been ratified by the senate and people. 
A passage wide enough for one person to pass was made in 
the paling with which the Samnites had inclosed them,t 
and one of the pales laid across it, and through this door 
the consuls, followed by their officers and men, each in a 
single garment, came forth. Pontius gave beasts of burden 
to convey the sick and wounded, and provisions enough to 
take the army to Rome. 

They reached Capua before nightfall ; but shame, or doubt 
of the reception they might meet with, kept them from en- 
tering. Next morning all the people came out to meet and 
console them. Refreshments and aid of every kind were 
given them, and they thence pursued their way to Rome. 

* There is good reason to suppose that the Romans made a desperate 
effort to extricate themselves, and were driven back with great ^laugh- 
ter. (Appian, Samn. iv. 6. Cicero de Off. iii. 30.) 

t Appian, Samn. iv. 6. Gellius, xvii. 21. 



144 HISTORY OF ROME. 

* 

When the news of their calamity had first reached Rome, 
a total cessation of business {justitium) had taken place, 
and a general levy, either to attempt their relief or to de- 
fend the city, had been made, and all orders of people went 
into mourning.* In this state of things the disgraced army 
reached the gates. It there dispersed ; those who lived in 
the country went avi^ay; those who dwelt in the city slunk 
with night to their houses. The consuls, having named a 
dictator for the consular elections, laid down their office. 

The senate having met to consider of the peace, the con- 
sul Publilius called on Sp. Postumius to give his opinion. 
He rose with downcast looks, and advised that himself and 
all who had sworn to the treaty should be delivered up to 
the Samnites, as having deceived them, by making a treaty 
without the consent of the Roman people, and a fresh army 
be levied, and the war renewed ; and though there was 
hardly a senator who had not a son or some other relative 
among the hostages, it was resolved to do as he advised. 
Postumius and his companions were .taken bound to Cau- 
dium ; the fetial led them before the tribunal of Pontius, 
and made the surrender of them in the solemn form. Pos- 
tumius, as he concluded, struck his knee against the fetial's 
thigh, and drove him off, crying, " I am now a Samnite, 
thou an ambassador: I thus violate the law of nations ; ye 
may justly now resume the war." 

Pontius replied with dignity : he treated this act of re- 
ligiout. hypocrisy as a childish manoeuvre; he told the Ro- 
mans that if they wished to renounce the treaty with 
any show of justice, they should place their legions as they 
were when it was made ; but their present conduct he said 
was base and unworthy, and he would not accept such a 
surrender as this, or let them thus hope to avert the anger 
of the gods. He then ordered Postumius and the other 
Romans to be unbound and dismissed. 

Tiie war therefore was renewed, and the Romans, re- 
turning to their original plan of carrying it on simulta- 
neously in Apulia and on the western frontier of Samnium, 
sent the consul L. Papirius to lay siege to Nuceria, which 
was now in the hands of the Samnites, while his colleague 
Publilius led his army into Samnium. Papirius sat down 
before Nuceria ; but a Samnite army came and encamped 
at hand, and rendered his communication with Arpi, whence 

* Appian, Samn. iv. '3^. 



SAMNITE WAR. 145 

he drew his supplies, so difficult, that it was only by the 
knights going and fetching corn in little bags on their horses 
that any food could be had in the camp. The arrival of 
Publilius with the other army relieved them ; and after a 
vain attempt of the Tarentines to mediate a peace, the Ro- 
mans attacked and stormed the Samnite camp with great 
slaughter, which, though they were unable to retain it, had 
tlie etfect of making the Samnite army retire, and leave 
Nuceria to its fate. Its garrison of seven thousand men 
then capitulated, on condition of a free passage, without 
arms or baa^ffaofe.* 

The two following years (436, 437) were years of truce, 
in consequence of exhaustion on both sides ; and during the 
truce the Romans so extended and consolidated their do- 
minion in Apulia that no attempt was ever after made to 
shake it off. In 438 the war was resumed, and the Ro- 
mans laid siege to Saticula, an Oscan town not far from 
Capua and in alliance with the Samnites. Meantime the 
Samnites had taken the colonial town of Plistica ; and the 
Volscians of Sora, having slain their Roman garrison, re- 
volted to them. They then made an attack on the Roman 
army before Saticula, but were defeated with great loss, 
and the town immediately surrendered. The Roman armies 
then entered and ravaged Samnium, and the seat of war 
was transferred to Apulia. While the consular armies were 
thus distant, the Samnites made a general levy, and came 
and took a position at Lautulse, in order to cut off the com- 
munication between Rome and Campania. The dictator, 
d. Fabius, instantly levied an army, and hastened to give 
them battle. The Romans were utterly defeated, and fled 
from the field; the master of the horse, Q.. Aulius, unable 
to outlive the disgrace of flight, maintained his ground, and 
fell fighting bravely. Revolt spread far and wide among 
the Roman subjects in the vicinity ; the danger was great 
and imminent, but the fortune of Rome prevailed, and the 
menacing storm dispersed. 

In 440 the Samnites sustained a great defeat near a town 
named Cinna, whose site is unknown. The Campanians, 
who were in the act of revoltinor at this time, submitted on 
the appearance of the dictator, C. Msenms, and the most 
guilty withdrew themselves from punishment by a voluntary 

* As it appears from Diodorus (xv. 72) that Nuceria was not taken 
till 439, Niebuhr regards this as a fiction of the Romans, anxious to 
efface as soon as possible the disgrace at Caudium. 

13 s 



146 HISTORY OF ROME. 

death. The Ausonian towns, Ausona, Minturnse, and Ve- 
scia, were taken by treachery and stratagem, and their pop- 
ulation massacred or enslaved, as a fearful lesson to the 
subjects of Rome against wavering in their allegiance. 

The united armies of the consuls, M. Poetelius and C. 
Sulpicius, entered Samnium on the side of Caudium ; but 
while they were advancing timidly and cautiously through 
the formidable region, they learned that the Samnite army 
was wasting the plain of Campania. They led back their 
forces, and erelong the two armies encountered. The 
tactics of the Romans were new on this occasion ; the left 
wing, under Poetelius, was made dense and deep, while the 
right was expanded more than usual. Pcetelius, adding the 
reserve to his wing, made a steady charge with the whole 
mass : the Samnites gave way ; their horse came to their 
aid; but Sulpicius coming up with his body of horse, and 
charging them with the whole Roman cavalry, put them to 
the rout. He then hastened to his own wing, which now 
was yielding; the timely reinforcement turned the beam, 
and the Samnites were routed on all sides with great 
slaughter. 

The following year (441) was marked by the capture of 
Nola and some other towns, and by the founding of colo- 
nies to secure the dominion which had been acquired. In 
442 Sora was taken in the following manner. A deserter 
came to the consuls, and offered to lead some Roman sol- 
diers by a secret path up to the Arx, or citadel, which was 
a precipitous eminence over the town. His offer was ac- 
cepted ; the legions were withdrawn to a dista.nce of six 
miles from the town ; some cohorts were concealed in a wood 
at hand, and ten men accompanied the Soran traitor.'^ 
They clambered in the night up through the stones apd 
bushes, and at length reached the area of the Arx. Their 
guide, showing them the narrow steep path that led thence 
down to the town, desired them to guard it while he went 
down and gave the alarm. He then ran through the town 
crying that the enemy was on the Arx ; and when the truth 
of his report was ascertained, the people prepared to fly 
from the town ; but in the confusion, the Roman cohorts 
broke in and commenced a massacre. At daybreak the 
consuls came ; they granted their lives to the surviving in- 
habitants, with the exception of two hundred and twenty- 
five, who, as the authors of the revolt, were brought bound 
to Rome, and sconrsred and beheaded in the Forum. 



TUSCAN WAR. 147 

The tide of war had turned so decidedly against the 
Samnites, that one or two campaigns more of the whole 
force of Rome would have sufficed for their subjugation. 
But just now a new enemy was about to appear, who was 
likely to give ample employment to the Roman arms for 
some time. The Etruscans, who, probably owing to their 
contests with and fears of the Gauls, had for many years 
abstained from war with the Romans, now, either moved 
by the instances of the Samnites or aware of the danger of 
suffering Rome to grow too powerful, began (442) to make 
such hostile manifestations that great alarm prevailed at 
Rome. Various circumstances, however, kept off the war 
for nearly two years longer. 

In 443 all the peoples of Etruria, except the Arretines, 
having sent their troops, a Tuscan army prepared to lay 
siege to the frontier town of Sutrium. The consul Q,. ^mil- 
ius came to cover it, and the two armies met before it. At 
daybreak of the second day, the Tuscans drew out in order 
of battle; the consul, having made his men take their 
breakfast, led them out also. The two armies stood opposite 
each other, each hesitating to begin, till after noon ; the 
Tuscans then fell on : night terminated a bloody and inde- 
cisive action; each retired to their camp, and neither felt 
themselves strong enough to renew the conflict next day. 

The next year (444) a Tuscan army laid siege to Su- 
trium, aud the consul Q,. Fabius hastened from Rome to 
its relief. As his troops were far inferior to the Etruscans 
in number, he led them cautiously along the hills. The 
enemy drew out his forces in the plain to give him battle ; 
but the consul, fearing to descend, formed his array on the 
hill side in a part covered with loose stones. Relying on 
their numbers the Tuscans charged up-hill; the Romans 
hurled stones and missile weapons on them, and then char- 
ging, with the advantage of the ground, drove them back, and 
the horse getting between them and their camp forced them 
to take refuge in the adjacent Ciminian wood. Their camp 
became the prize of the victors. 

Like so many others in the early Roman history, this 
battle has probably been given a magnitude and an impor- 
tance which does not belong to it, and the truth would seem 
to be that the-gonsul only repulsed the advanced guard of 
the enemy, and not feeling himself strong enough to engage 
their main army, resolved to create a diversion by invading 
their country. 



148 HISTORY OF ROME, 

North of Sutrium, (Sutri,) near the modern Viterbo, ex- 
tends a range of high ground, which at that time formed 
the boundary between Roman and independent Etruria. It 
was covered with natural wood, and was thence named the 
Ciminian Wood. Over this barrier Fabius resolved to lead 
his troops. He sent to inform the senate of his plan, that 
measures might be taken for the defence of the country 
during his absence. Meantime he sent one of his brothers, 
who spoke the Tuscan language, in disguise to penetrate 
to the Umbrians, and to form alliances with any of them 
that were hostile to the Etruscans. The only people, 
however, whom he found so disposed were the Caraertines, 
who agreed to join the Romans if they penetrated to their 
country. 

The senate, daunted at the boldness of Fabius' plan, sent 
five legates and two tribunes of the people to forbid him to 
enter the wood, perhaps to arrest him if he should hesitate 
to obey. But they came too late : in the first watch of the 
night Fabius sent forward his baggage, the infantry fol- 
lowed ; he himself a little before sunrise led his horse up to 
the enemy's camp, as it were to reconnoitre. In the evening 
he returned to his own camp, and then set out and came 
up with his infantry before night. At daybreak they reached 
the summit of the mountain, and beheld the smiling plains 
of Etruria stretched out before them. They hastened to 
seize the offered prey : the Etruscan nobles assembled their 
vassals to oppose them, bnt they could offer no effectual re- 
sistance to the disciplined troops of Rome. The Roman 
army spread their ravages as far as Perusia, where they en- 
countered and totally defeated a combined army of Etrus- 
cans and Umbrians ; and Perusia, Cortona, and Arretium, 
three of the leading cities of Etruria, sent forthwith to sue 
for peace, which was granted for a term of thirty years. 
As the Romans were returning to the relief of Sutrium 
they encountered at the lake of Vadimo, between Perusia 
and Falerii, another Etruscan army, of select troops.* The 
two armies engaged hand to hand at once ; the first ranks 
fought till they were exhausted; the reserve then advanced, 
and the victory was only decided by the Roman knights dis- 
mounting and taking their place in the front of the line. 

While Fabius was conductingr the war in Etruria, his 



* They were bound by a sok^mn oath (lege sncrata) to fight to their 
uttermost. These were probably tlie troops of the western towns. 



SAMNITE AND TUSCAN WARS. 149 

colleague C. Marcius had entered Satimium and taken 
Allifa3 and some other strongholds. The Samnites collected 
their forces and gave him battle ; and the Romans were de- 
feated, several of their officers slain, the consul himself 
w^ounded, and their communication with Rome cut off. 
When the news reached Rome, the senate at once resolved 
to create a dictator, and to send him off to the relief of Mar- 
cius with the reserve which had been levied on account of 
the Etruscan war. Their hopes lay in L. Papirius Cursor; 
but the dictator could only be named by the consul ; there 
was no way of reaching Marcius, and Fabius had not yet 
forgiven the man who had thirsted after hiS blood. The 
resolve of the senate was borne to Fabius by consulars; they 
urged him to sacrifice his private feelings to the good of 
his country : he heard them in silence, his eyes fixed on the 
ground, and they retired in uncertainty. In the stillness of 
the night he arose, and, as was the usage, named L. Papirius 
dictator, and in the morning he ao-ain listened in silence to the 
thanks and praises of the deputies. The dictator immedi- 
ately set forth and relieved the army of Marcius, but, impet- 
uous as he was, he contented himself for some time with 
merely observing the enemy. 

At length the time arrived for a decisive action. The 
Samnite army was divided into two corps, the one clad in 
purple, the other in white linen tunics, the former having 
their brazen shields adorned with gold, the latter with sil- 
ver : the shields were broad above, narrow below. Each 
soldier wore a crested helmet, a large sponge to protect his 
breast, and a greave on his left leg. In the battle the Ro- 
man dictator led the right wing against the gold-shielded, 
the master of the horse, C. Junius, the left against the sil- 
ver-shielded Samnites. Junius made the first impression 
on the enemy; the dictator urged his men to emulation, and 
the Roman horse by a charge on both flanks completed the 
victory. The Samnites fled to their camp, but were unable 
to retain it, and ere night it was sacked and burnt. The 
golden shields adorned the dictator's triumph, and they were 
then given to the money-dealers to ornament their shops 
in the Forum. 

Q,. Fabius was continued in the consulate for 445, and 
P. Decius given to him as his colleague ; the former had 
the Samnite, the latter the Etruscan war. Fabius routed 
the Marsians and Pelignians, who had now joined against 
Rome, and he then led his legions into Umbria, whose peo- 
13* 



150 HISTORY OF ROME. 

pie had taken arms, and with little difficulty reduced them 
to submission. Decius meantime had forced the Etruscans 
to sue for peace, and a year's truce was granted them on 
their giving «ach soldier two tunics, and a year's pay for the 
army. 

In the remaining years of the war, the exhausted powers 
of the Samnites could offer but a feeble resistance to the 
legions of Rome. On the occasion of a defeat which they 
sustained in 446, the proconsul Q,. Fabius adopted the 
novel course of dismissing the Samnite prisoners, and sell- 
ing for slaves those of their allies. Among these there 
were several Hernicans, whom he sent to Rome; the senate 
having instituted an inquiry into the conduct of the Her- 
nican people in this affair, those who had urged them to 
give aid to the Samnites now engaged them to take arms 
openly. All the Hernican peoples but three shared in the 
war ; but they made a stand little worthy of their old re- 
nown ; one short campaign sufficed for their reduction, and 
they were placed (447) on nearly the same footing as the 
Latins had been thirty years before. 

The Samnites at length (449) sued for peace, and ob- 
tained it on the condition they had so often spurned, that of 
acknowledging Rome's supremacy, in other words, of yield- 
ing up their independence ; but peace on any terms was 
now necessary, that they might recruit their strength for 
future efforts. The Romans then turned their arms against 
the ^quians, who had joined the Hernicans in aiding the 
Samnites, and in fifty days the consuls reduced and de- 
stroyed forty-one of their Cyclopian-walled towns. The 
Marsian League sought and obtained peace from Rome. 



THIRD SAMNITE AND ETRUSCAN WARS. 151 

CHAPTER VII. 

THIRD SAMNITE AND ETRUSCAN WARS. BATTLE OF SENTI- 

NUM, AND SELF-DEVOTION OF DECIUS. BATTLE OF AQUI- 

LONIA. REDUCTION OF THE SAMNITES. HORTENSIAN 

LAW. WORSHIP OF ^SCULAPIUS INTRODUCED. LUCA- 

NIAN WAR. ROMAN EMBASSY INSULTED AT TARENTUM. 

GALLIC AND ETRUSCAN WAR. 

Four years (450 — 454) passed away in tolerable tranquil- 
lity. In 454 Lucanian envoys appeared at Rome, praying 
for aid against the Samnites, who had entered their country 
in arms, given them various defeats, and taken several of 
their towns. The Romans, in right of their supremacy, 
sent orders to the Samnites to withdraw their troops from 
Lucania : the Samnites' pride was roused at being thus re- 
minded of their subjection ; they ordered the fetials off their 
territory, and war was at once declared against them by 
the Romans. As the Etruscans were now also in arms, 
the consul L. Cornelius Scipio went against them, while 
his colleague Cn. Fulvius invaded Samnium. 

Scipio engaged a numerous Etruscan army near Vola- 
terrae. Night ended a hard-fought battle, leaving it un- 
decided. The morn however revealed that the advantage 
was on the side of the Romans, as the enemy had aban- 
doned their camp during the night. Having placed his 
baggage and stores at Falerii, Scipio spread his ravages 
over the country, burning the villages and hamlets; and no 
army appeared to oppose him. Fulvius meantime carried 
on the war with credit in Samnium. Near Bovianum he 
defeated a Samnite army, and took that town and another 
named Aufidena. 

The rumor of the great preparations which the Samnites 
and the Etruscans were said to be making caused the peo- 
ple to elect Q,. Fabius to the consulate, against his will ; 
and at his own request they joined with him P. Decius. As 
the Etruscans remained quiet, both the consuls invaded 
Samnium, (455,) Fabius entering from Sora, Decius from 
Sidicinum. The Samnites gave Fabius battle near Tifer- 
num : their infantry stood firm against that of the Romans ; 
the charge of the Roman cavalry had as little effect. At 
length, when the reserve had come to the front, and the 



152 ^ HISTOKY OF ROME. 

contest was most obstinate, the legate Scipio, whom the 
consul had sent away during the action with the Hastates 
of the first legion, appeared on the neighboring hills. Both 
armies took them for the legions of Decius ; the Samnites' 
courage fell, that of the Romans rose, and evening closed 
on their victory. Decius had meantime defeated the Apu- 
lians at Maleventum, During five months both armies 
ravaged Samniura with impunity ; the traces of five-and- 
forty camps of Decius, of eighty-six of Fabius, bore witness 
to the sufferings of the ill-fated country. 

The next year (456) the Samnites put into execution a 
daring plan which they had formed in the preceding war, 
namely, sending an army, to be paid and supported out of 
their own funds, into Etruria, leaving Samnium meantime 
at the mercy of the enemy. The Samnite army, under 
Gellius Egnatius, on arriving there, was joined by the 
troops of most of the Tuscan states ; the Umbrians also 
shared in the war, and it was proposed to take Gallic mer- 
cenaries into pay. The consul Ap. Claudius entered Etru- 
ria with his two legions and twelve thousand of the allies, 
but he did not feel himself strong enough to give the con- 
federates battle. The consul Volumnius, probably by com- 
mand of the senate, led his army to join him ; but Appius 
gave him so ungracious a reception that he was preparing 
to retire, when the officers of the other army implored him 
not to abandon them for their general's fault. Volumnius 
then agreed to remain and fight : a victory was speedily 
gained over the Etruscans and Samnites, whose general 
Egnatius was unfortunately absent ; 7300 were slain, 2120 
taken, and their camp was stormed and plundered. 

As Volumnius was returning by rapid marches to Sam- 
nium, he learned that the Samnites had taken advantage 
of his absence to make a descent on Campania, where they 
had collected an immense booty. He forthwith directed 
his course thither : at Cales he heard that they were en- 
camped on the Voltnrnus, with the intention of carrying 
their prey into Samnium to secure it. He came and en- 
camped near them, but out of view; and when the Samnites 
had before day sent forward their captives and booty under 
an escort, and were getting out of their camp to follow 
them, they were suddenly fallen on by the Romans : the 
camp was stormed with great slaughter ; the captives, hear- 
ing the tumult, unbound themselves, and fell on their escort : 



THIRD SAMNITE AND ETRUSCAN WARS. 153 

the Samnites were routed on all sides; 6000 were slain. 
2500 were taken, 7400 captives, with all their property, 
were recovered. 

The union of the Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and 
Gauls, which had now been formed, caused the greatest 
apprehension at Rome, and the people insisted on electing 
Q,. Fabius consul, to which he would only consent on con- 
dition of his approved mate in arms P. Decius being given 
him for colleague. His wish was complied with. The 
four legions of the former year were kept on foot and com- 
pleted, two new ones raised, and two armies of reserve 
formed. The number of troops furnished by the allies was 
considerable : among them were one thousand Campanian 
horse, for as the Gauls were strong in this arm, it was ne- 
cessary to augment its force. 

During the winter Fabius set out, with four thousand foot 
and six hundred horse, to take the command in Etruria. 
As he drew nigh to the camp of Ap. Claudius he met a party 
sent out for firewood ; he ordered them to go back and use 
the palisades of their camp for the purpose. This gave con- 
fidence to the soldiers, and to keep up their spirits, he never 
let them remain stationary, but moved about from place 
to place. In the spring (457) he returned to Rome to ar- 
rancre the campaign, leaving the command in Etruria w^ith 
L. Scipio. 

The consuls led their main force to join the troops left 
with Scipio; one army of reserve under Fulvius was sta- 
tioned in the Faliscan, another in the Vatican district. 
But the Gauls, pouring in by the pass of Camerinum, 
had annihilated a Roman legion left to defend it; their 
numerous cavalry spread over Umbria and got between 
Scipio and Rome ; and as they rode up to the consular 
army, the heads of the slain Romans, which they carried 
on spears and hung at their horses' breasts, made the Ro- 
mans believe that Scipio's whole army had been destroyed. 
A junction hov/ever was formed with him, and L. Volum- 
nius, who commanded in Samnium, was directed to lead 
his legions to reinforce those of the consuls. The three 
united armies then crossed the Apennines, and took a po- 
sition in the Sentine country to menace the possessions of 
the Senonian Gauls ; and the two armies of reserve ad- 
vanced in proportion, the one to Clusiura, the other to 
the Faliscan country. The confederates came and en- 
camped before the Romans; but they avoided an action, 

T 



154 HISTORY OF ROME. 

probably waiting for reinforcements. The consuls, learning 
by deserters that the plan of the enemy was for the Gauls 
and Sanmites to give them battle, and the Etruscans and 
Umbrians to fall on their camp during the action, sent 
orders to Fulvius to ravage Etruria: this called a large 
part of the Etruscans home, and the consuls endeavored to 
bring on an engagement during their absence. For two 
entire days they vainly sought to draw the confederates to 
the field ; on the third their challenge was accepted. 

Fabius commanded on the right, opposed to the Samnites 
and the remaining Etruscans and Umbrians ; Decius led 
the left wing against the Gauls. Ere the fight began, a 
wolf chased a hind from the mountains down between the 
two armies ; the hind sought refuge among the Gauls, by 
whom she was killed ; the wolf ran among the Romans, who 
made way for him to pass ; and this appearance of the 
favorite of Mars was regarded as an omen of victory. 

In the hope of tiring the Samnites, Fabius made his men 
act rather on the defensive, and he refrained from bringing 
his reserve into action. Decius, on the other hand, know- 
ing how impetuous the first attack of the Gauls always was, 
resolved not to await it; he charged with both foot and 
horse, and twice drove back the numerous Gallic cavalry ; 
but when his horse charged a third time, the Gauls sent 
forward their war-chariots, which spread confusion and dis- 
may among them; they fled back among their infantry ; the 
victorious Gauls followed hard upon them. The battle, and 
with it possibly the hopes of Rome, was on the point of 
being lost, when Decius, who had resolved, if defeat im- 
pended, to devote himself like his father at Vesuvius, de- 
sired the pontiff M. Livius, whom he had kept near him 
for the purpose, to repeat the form of devotion ; then add- 
ing to it these words, *' I drive before me dismay and 
flight, slaughter and blood, the anger of the powers above 
and below ; with funereal terrors I touch the arms, weapons, 
and ensigns of the foe ; the same place shall be that of my 
end and of the Gauls and Samnites," he spurred his horse, 
rushed into the thick of the enemies, and fell covered with 
wounds. The pontiff, to whom Decius had given his 
lictors, encouraged the Romans; a part of Fabius' reserve 
came to their support : the Gauls stood in a dense mass 
covered with their shields; the Romans, collecting the pila 
that lay on the ground hurled them on them ; but the 
Gauls stood unmoved, till Fabius, who by bringing forward 



BATTLE OF AqUILONIA. 155 

his reserve and causing his horse to fall on their flank, had 
driven the Samnites to their camp, sent five hundred Cam- 
panian horse, followed by the Principes of the third legion, 
to attack them in the rear ; they then broke and fled. Fabius 
again assailed the Samnites under their rampart ; their gen- 
eral, Gellius Egnatius, fell, and the camp was taken. The 
confederates lost 25,000 men slain and 8000 taken ; 7000 
was the loss in the wing led by Decius, 1200 in that of 
Fabius. This was one of the most important victories ever 
achieved by the arms of Rome. 

The following year the war was continued in Etruria 
and Samnium, and a bloody battle was fought at Nuceria. 
The next year (459) the consuls, L. Papirius Cursor and 
Sp. Carvilius, took the field against a Samnite army, which 
all the aids of superstition had been employed to render 
formidable. 

All the fighting men of Samnium were ordered to appear 
at the town of Aquilonia. A . tabernacle, two hundred feet 
square and covered with linen, was erected in the midst of 
the camp. Within it a venerable man named Ovius Pac- 
tius offered sacrifice after an ancient ritual contained in an 
old linen book. The Imperator or general then ordered the 
nobles to be called in separately : each as he entered beheld 
through the gloom of the tabernacle an altar in the centre, 
about which lay the bodies of the victims, and around which 
stood centurions with drawn swords. He was required to 
swear, imprecating curses on himself, his family, and his 
race, if he did not in the battle go whithersoever the Impe- 
rator ordered him, if he fled, or did not slay any one 
whom he saw flying. Some of the first summoned, refusing 
to swear, were slain, and their bodies lying among those 
of the victims served as a warning to others. The Impe- 
rator selected ten of those who had thus sworn, each of 
whom was directed to choose a man till the number of 
sixteen thousand was completed, which was named, from 
the tabernacle, the Linen Legion. Crested helmets and su- 
perior arms were given them for distinction. The rest of 
the army, upwards of 20,000 men, was little inferior in any 
respect to the Linen Legion. 

The Roman armies entered Samnium ; and while Papir- 
ius advanced to Aquilonia, Carvilius sat down before a 
fortress named Cominium, about twenty miles from that 
place. The ardor for battle is said to have been shared 
to such an extent by all in the Roman army, that the Pul- 



156 HISTORY OF ROME. 

larius, or keeper of the sacred chickens, made a false report 
of favorable signs. The truth was told to the consul as 
he was going into battle ; but he said the signs reported to 
him were good, and only ordered the Pullarii to be placed 
in the front rank ; and when the guilty one fell by the chance 
blow of a.pilum, he cried, that the gods were present, the 
guilty was punished. A raven croaked aloud as he spoke ; 
he ordered the trumpets to sound and the war-cry to be 
raised. 

The Samnites had sent off twenty cohorts to the relief 
of Cominium ; their spirits were depressed, but they kept 
their ground, till a great cloud of dust, as if raised by an 
army, was seen on one side. For the consul had sent off 
before the action Sp. Nautius, with the mules and their 
drivers, and some cohorts of the allies, with directions to ad- 
vance during the engagement, raising all the dust they could. 
Nautius now came in view, the horseboys having boughs in 
their hands, which they dragged along the ground ; and 
the arms and banners appearing through the dust, made 
both Romans and Samnites think that an army was ap- 
proaching. The consul then gave the sign for the horse to 
charge; the Samnites broke and fled, some to Aquilonia, 
some to Bovianum. The number of their slain is said to have 
been 30,340, and 3870 men and 97 banners were captured. 
Aquilonia and Cominium were both taken on the same day. 
The consuls remained in Samnium, ravaging the country, till 
the falling of the snow obliged them to leave it for the winter.* 

In the next campaign, (460,) the Samnite general C. Pon- 
tius gave the Roman consul d. Fabius Gurges, son of the 
great Fabius, a complete defeat. A strong party in the 
senate, the enemies of the Fabian house, were for depriving 
the consul of his command; but the people yielded to the 
prayers of his father, who implored them to spare him this 
disgrace in his old age; and he himself went into Samnium 
as legate to his son. At a place whose name is unknown, 
the battle which decided the fate of Samnium was fought. 
Fabius gained the victory by his usual tactics, of keeping 
his reserve for the proper time. The Samnites had twenty 
thousand slain and four thousand taken, among whom was 
their great Imperator C. Pontius. In the triumph of Fabius 

* Livy's first Decad ends here. We have only an epitome of the next, 
which contained the history to the year 534. We are now for some 
years left to the guidance of the epitoraators, and the fragments of 
Appian and Dion. 



WORSHIP OF iESCULAPIUS INTRODUCED. 157 

Gurges, his renowned father humbly followed his car on 
horseback ; and C. Pontius was led in bonds, and then, to 
Rome's disgrace, beheaded. Q,, Fabius Maximus, one of 
the greatest men that Rome ever produced, died it is prob- 
able shortly afterwards.* 

The Samnite war, which had lasted with little intermis- 
sion for nine-and-forty years, was now terminated by a peace, 
of the terms of which we are not informed. The Sabines, 
who, after a cessation of one hundred and fifty years, fool- 
ishly took up arms against Rome, were easily reduced by 
the consul M'. Curius Dentatus, and a large quantity of their 
land was taken from them. Much larger assignments than 
the usual seven jugers might now be made, but Curius 
deemed it unwise to pass that limit ; and when the people 
murmured, he replied, that he was a pernicious citizen whom 
the land which sufficed to support him did not satisfy. He 
refused for himself five hundred jugers and a house at Tifata 
which the senate offered him, and contented himself with 
a farm of seven jugers in the Sabine country. 

The length of the Samnite war, its consequent great ex- 
pense, the destruction of property in the invaded districts, 
the neglect of agriculture on account of the incessant mil- 
itary service, and other causes which will easily suggest 
themselves, caused considerable distress at Rome, and it 
even came to a secession. The people posted themselves 
on the Janiculan; but the dictator, Q,. Hortensius, induced 
them to submit, either by an abolition or a considerable 
reduction of the amount of their debts. This is the last 
secession we read of in Roman history. 

On this occasion the Hortensian law, which made the 
plebiscits binding on the whole nation, was passed; a meas- 
ure probably caused by the obstinacy and caprice of the 
patricians, but pregnant with evil, from which however the 
good fortune of Rome long preserved her. It was as if with 
us a measure which had passed the Commons were to be- 
come at once the law of the land.t 

Among the events of this period, the introduction of the 
worship of JEsculapius deserves to be noticed. In the year 

* The reason of his surname Maximus vrill be given in the next 
chapter. 

t Niebuhr says that the language of the law must have been ut quod 
tributim plebes jussisset populum teneret. He thinks (Hist, of Rome 
ii. 366) that the Hortensian law did away with the veto of the senate, 
as the Publilian did with that of the curies. 
14 



158 HISTORY OF ROME. 

459 an epidemic prevailed at Rome, and the Sibylline books 
being consulted, it was directed to fetch ^Esculapius to 
Rome. A trireme with ten deputies was sent to Epidaurus 
for that purpose. The legend relates, that the senate of 
that place agreed that the Romans should take whatever 
the god should give them ; and that as they prayed at the 
temple, a huge snake came out of the sanctuary, went on 
to the town five miles off, through the streets, to the harbor, 
thence on board the Roman trireme, and into the cabin of 
Q,. Ogulnius. The envoys, having been instructed in the 
worship of the god, departed, and a prosperous wind brought 
them to Antium. Here they took shelter from a storm ; 
the snake swam ashore, and remained twined round a palm- 
tree at the temple of Apollo while they staid. When they 
reached Rome he left the ship again, and swimming to the 
island, disappeared in the spot where the temple of the god 
was afterwards built.* 

Rome now rested from war for some years. At length 
(468) the Tarentines, who had been the chief agents in 
exciting the Samnite war, succeeded in inducing the 
Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls in the north, and the Lu- 
canians, Bruttians, and Samnites in the south, to take arms 
simultaneously against her. The commencement was the 
hostility exercised by the Lucanians against the people of 
the Greek town of Thurii, who, despairing of aid from any 
other quarter, applied to the Romans ; and a Roman army 
came and relieved the town. 

In 470, a Roman army under C. Fabricius came to the 
relief of Thurii, which was again invested by a united army 
of Lucanians and Bruttians. The spirits of the Romans 
sank as they viewed their own inferiority of force : when 
lo ! a youth of gigantic stature, wearing a double-crested 
helm, like those on the statues of Mars, was seen to seize a 
scaling-ladder, and mount the rampart of the enemies' camp. 
The courage of the Romans rose, that of the foes declined, 
and a signal victory crowned the arms of Rome. When 
next day the consul sought that valiant youth, to bestow 
on him the suitable meed, he was nowhere to be found. 
Fabricius then directed a thanksgiving to Father Mars (as 
it must have been he) to be held throughout the army.t 

* The simple truth probably is, that the Romans obtained one of the 
tame sacred snakes that were kept at the temple of iEsculapius : the 
details are of course legendary. 

t Val. Max. i. 8. 6. This, says Niebuhr, is the last poetic legend in 



ROMAN EMBASSY INSULTED. 159 

Many other victories succeeded; and no Roman general 
had as yet acquired so much booty as Fabricius did in this 
campaign. 

When the Roman army retired, a garrison was left for 
the defence of Thurii. As it was only by sea that a com- 
munication could be conveniently kept up with it, a squadron 
of ten triremes, under the duumvir L. Valerius, was now 
in these waters. Some years before, it had been an article 
in a treaty with the Tarentines, that no Roman ship of war 
should sail north of the Lacinian cape ; but as they had 
taken no notice of it now, and there was as yet no open 
hostility between them and the Romans, Valerius entered 
the harbor of Tarentum. The people unluckily happened 
at that moment to be assembled in the theatre, which com- 
manded a view of the sea ; a demagogue named Philocharis, 
a man of the vilest character, pointing to the Roman ships, 
reminded them of the treaty; the infuriated populace rushed 
on shipboard, attacked and sunk four, and took one of the 
Roman vessels. The duumvir was among those who per- 
ished. The Tarentines then sent a force against Thurii, 
where they plundered the town and banished the principal 
citizens : the Roman garrison was dismissed unmolested. 

The Romans, as they had an Etruscan war on their hands, 
were anxious to accommodate matters amicably in the south. 
Their demands therefore v/ere very moderate ; they only re- 
quired the release of those taken in the trireme ; the restora- 
tion of the Thurians, and restitution of their property; and* 
the surrender of the authors of the outrage. Audience was 
given to the envoys in the theatre. When they entered, the 
people laughed at the sight of their purple-bordered prtB- 
textcB, and the faults, of language committed by L. Postu- 
raius, the chief of the embassy, redoubled their merriment. 
As the envoys were leaving the theatre, a drunken buffoon 
came and befouled the robe of Posturaius in the most abom- 
inable manner : the peals of laughter were redoubled ; but 
Postumius, holding up his robe, cried out, "Ay, laugh, 
laugh while ye may ; ye will weep long enough when ye 
have to wash this out in blood." He displayed at Rome 
his unwashed garment; and the senate, after anxious de- 
liberation, declared war against Tarentum. (471.) The 

the Roman history. He is mistaken ; the Tyndarids appeared in 584, 
mounted on their white horses, to one - — ■ 
defeat of Perseus. Cic. de N. D. ii. 2. 



160 HISTORY OF ROME. 

consul L. -iEmilius Barbula was ordered to lead his army 
thither, to offer anew the former terms, and if they were 
refused to carry on the war with vigor. The Tarentines, 
however, would listen to no terms; they resorted to their 
usual system of seeking aid from the mother-country, and 
sent an embassy to invite over Pyrrhus, the renowned 
king of Epirus. Meantime Emilias laid waste their coun- 
try, took several strong places, and defeated them in the 
field. 

We will now turn our view northwards. In 469 a com- 
bined army of Etruscans and Senonian Gauls having laid 
siege to Arretium, the prfetor L. Metellus hastened to its re- 
lief; but his army was totally defeated, thirteen thousand 
men being slain, and nearly all the remainder made prison- 
ers. When an embassy was sent to the Gauls to complain 
of breach of treaty, and to redeem the prisoners, the Gallic 
prince Britomaris, to avenge his father, who had fallen at 
Arretium, caused the fetials to be murdered. The consul 
P. Cornelius Dolabella instantly marched through the Sa- 
bine and Picentian country into that of the Senones, 
whom he defeated when they met him in the field : he then 
wasted the lands, burned their open villages, put all the 
men to death, and reduced the women and children to 
slavery. Britomaris, who was taken alive, was reserved to 
grace the consul's triumph. 

The Boians, who dwelt between the Senones and the Po, 
"Vere filled with rage and apprehension at the fate of their 
brethren, and assembling all their forces they entered 
Etruria, where being joined by the Etruscans and the 
remnant of the Senones, they pressed on for Rome ; but 
at the lake Vadimo the consular armies met, and nearly an- 
nihilated their whole army ; the Senones, it is said, in the 
frenzy of despair put an end to themselves when they saw 
the battle lost. The Gauls appeared again the next year 
(470) in Etruria; but a signal defeat near Populonia forced 
them to sue for peace, which, on account of the war in the 
south, the Romans readily granted. 

The war with the Etruscans continued till 472, when, in 
consequence of that with Pyrrhus, the Romans concluded 
a peace with them on most favorable terms. This peace 
terminated the conflict, which had now lasted for thirty 
years, and converted Etruria into Rome's steadiest and 
most faithful ally. 



ARRIVAL OF PYRRHUS IN ITALY. 161 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ARRIVAL OP PYRRHUS IN ITALY. BATTLE ON THE SIRIS. 

CINEAS AT ROME. APPROACH OF PYRRHUS TO ROME. 

BATTLE OF ASCULUM. PYRRHUS IN SICILY. BATTLE OF 

BENEVENTUM. DEPARTURE OF PYRRHUS. ITALIAN AL- 
LIES. CENSORSHIP OF AP. CLAUDIUS. — CHANGE IN THE 

CONSTITUTION. THE ROMAN LEGION. ROMAN LITERA- 
TURE. 

Pyrrhus, the ablest and most ambitious prince of his time, 
lent a willing ear to the invitation of the Italian Greeks which 
held out to him such a prospect of extensive dominion.* He 
sent his minister, the orator Cineas,t back with some of the 
envoys, to assure the Tarentines of aid ; and shortly after- 
wards Milo, one of his generals, landed with 3000 men to 
garrison the town. Having assembled an army of 20,000 
foot, 3000 horse, 2000 archers, 500 slingers, and twenty 
elephants, the king himself set sail (472) for Italy; but 
a storm came on and dispersed his fleet ; several ships were 
sunk or cast away ; and Pyrrhus, who had escaped with dif- 
ficulty, reached Tarentum with but a small force. He did 
not seek to exercise any authority till the rest of his troops 
were arrived ; but as soon as he found himself sufficiently 
strong, he began to employ the dictatorial power with which 
he had been invested. The Tarentines had thought they 
would have nothing to do but pay money, while the king's 
troops were fighting ; but Pyrrhus let them know that they 
also must share in the toils and dangers of war. He set 
guards at the gates to prevent them from running out of the 
town, as they were doing; he shut up the theatre, forbade all 
public meals and banquets, ordered the young men to practise 
military exercises in their gymnasia, and sent, under various 

* For the war with Pyrrhus see the epitomators and Plut., 
Pyrrhus. 

t Cineas was a Thessalian by birth, an able, eloquent, and noble- 
minded man, well worthy of the friendship of the greatest prince of the 
age, to whom he was as a good genius. It is said that he h-ad been a 
hearer of Demosthenes ; but that can hardly have been, as the great 
Athenian had now been dead forty-one years. Cineas' style of oratory 
was also totally different from his. 

14 * - u 



162 HISTORY OF ROME. 

pretexts, the principal men over to Epirus, that they might 
serve as hostages in case of any conspiracy against his au- 
thority. 

The consul P. Valerius Lsevinus having led his army into 
Lucania, Pyrrhus, who had not yet been joined by his allies, 
vs^rote to him, offering to arbitrate between the Romans and 
the Tarentines, which last he said he could compel to give 
satisfaction. LsBvinus replied that the king must first atone 
for having entered Italy ; that words were needless, as Fa- 
ther Mars must decide betv/een them. He had a spy who 
was taken, led through his army and then dismissed, with di- 
rections to tell Pyrrhus to come himself and see. 

Laevinus was encamped on the south bank of the river Si- 
ris, in the plain between Heraclea and Pandosia. Pyrrhus 
came and occupied the opposite bank. As he viewed the 
Roman camp, he observed to one of his friends that the bar- 
barians (the Greeks so named all people but themselves) 
showed nothing of the barbarian in their tactics. His object 
was to prevent their passing the river; but the Roman caval- 
ry crossed it higher up, and falling on the rear of the Epi- 
rotes who guarded the passage, enabled the infantry to get 
over. Pyrrhus sent his Thessalian horse against that of the 
Romans, who, though of an inferior quality, stood their 
ground. He then led on his phalanx : Megacles, who wore 
the royal helm and mantle, was slain ; both sides thought 
Pyrrhus had fallen, and the Epirotes had fled but that the 
king made himself known. Seven times the phalanx and the 
legion advanced and receded ; the consul thought to decide 
the battle by a charge of horse on the rear ; but the elephants 
were now brought into action, and at the sight of these un- 
known animals horse and man were filled with terror ; the 
Thessalian horse charged and scattered them ; they drew the 
infantry with them in ike'ir flight over the river, and none 
perhaps would have escaped, were it not that a wounded ele- 
phant turned his rage against his own side. The remnant 
of the Roman army fled to Venusia : their loss had been 
7000 slain, and about 2000 taken. On the side of the vic- 
tors 4000 had fallen. When Pyrrhus, on the following day, 
viewed the field of battle, he cried, " With such soldiers the 
world were mine, and were I their general the Romans 
would have it ! " To those who congratulated him on his 
success he replied, " One such victory more, and I go back 
to Epirus." He ordered the bodies of the Romans to be 



CINEAS AT ROME. 163 

burned and buried like those of his own men. He proposed 
to the prisoners to enter his service,* and on their refusal 
freed them from fetters. 

The whole south of Italy now joined Pyrrhus ; but this 
prince, who disliked long wars, and had had experience of 
Roman valor, preferred an honorable peace, which he thought 
might now be obtained, to a prolonged contest. He de- 
spatched his friend Cineas to Rome, to propose a peace, on 
condition of the independence of the Italian Greeks being 
acknowledged, and all that had been taken from the Samnites, 
Lucanians, Bruttians, and Apulians being restored. Peace 
being made on these terms, the Roman prisoners, among 
whom were six hundred knights, would be released without 
ransom. The eloquence and the winning manners of Cineas, 
though his gifts were refused, had a great effect on the minds 
of many ; the relatives of the prisoners were anxious on their 
account ; the Etruscan war was not yet ended. The prof- 
fered terms seemed likely to be accepted, when Ap. Claudius, 
who, on account of the blindness with which he was afflicted, 
had long abstained from public affairs, had himself carried in 
a litter to the senate-house. His sons and sons-in-law came 
out to receive him, and lead him in, and his indignant elo- 
quence banished all thoughts of peace from the minds of his 
auditors, and Cineas was ordered to quit Rome. On his 
return to his master he told him that Rome was a temple, 
the senate an assembly of kings. While he was yet there, 
two legions had been raised to reinforce Laevinus, and 
volunteers had crowded with the utmost eagerness to be- 
enrolled. 

Laevinus, who was now in Campania, was there joined by 
these legions, and he baffled the attempts of Pyrrhus on Capua 
and Neapolis, The king, as he could not bring him to ac- 
tion, resolved to push on for Rome, and form a junction with 
the Etruscans. Instead of taking the Appian or lower road, 
on which there were several strong towns, he moved by the 
Latin road over the hills. He took Fregellse, entered the 
Hernican country, where the people declared for him, pushed 
on to Prasneste,t and advanced five miles beyond it, to 

* The Grecian mercenaries at this time constantly changed sides 
afler a defeat. The same was the case in Italy in the middle ages, and 
in Germany in the thirty years' vrar. 

t He had a view of Rome from the citadel of this town. (Florus, 
i. 18.) 



164 HISTORY OF ROME. 

within eighteen miles of Rome ; but here his course ended. 
Peace had just been made with the Etruscans, and the army 
employed against them was now in Rome. Lsevinus dis- 
turbed the communications in his rear : to take Rome by 
storm or blockade was hopeless. Heedless of the prayers of 
the Praenestines and Hernicans, he resolved to retrace his 
steps. On reaching Campania he found Lsevinus at the 
head of six legions: "What!" cried he, "am I fighting 
with the hydra ? " He drew up his troops, who raised the 
war-cry, and clashed their arms. The Romans replied in 
such cheerful tones that he did not deem it prudent to attack 
them, and he dismissed his allies and went to Tarentum for 
the winter. 

At Tarentum Pyrrhus was waited on by three Roman 
ambassadors, G. Fabricius, Q,. ^milius Papus, and P. Cor- 
nelius Dolabella, all consulars, to treat of the ransom or 
exchange of the numerous prisoners who were now in his 
hands,* He rejected their offers ; but he gave the prisoners 
permission to go with them to Rome to keep the Saturnalia, 
on their promise to return if the senate did not make peace ; 
and, as all their efforts proved vain, they returned every one 
into captivity. 

In the spring (473) Pyrrhus opened the campaign in Apu- 
lia. He was besieging Venusia when he heard that the con- 
suls P. Sulpicius and P. Decius were advancing to its relief; 
he therefore raised the siege, and prepared to give them 
battle at a place named Asculum, on the edge of the moun- 
tains. As the ground here was against Pyrrhus, the advan- 
tage was on the side of the Romans in the first engagement; 
but he manoeuvred so as to draw them down into the plain, 
where by a sudden attack of the elephants and light troops 
on their flank, while they were exhausting themselves by 
fruitless efforts against the solid phalanx, he put them to 
flight. As their camp was at hand, their loss was but 6000 
men; that of the king was 3505. " One such victory more, 

* On this occasion, we are told (Plut., Pyrrhus, 20) that the king, 
having learned the poverty of Fabricius from Cineas, tried to induce 
him to accept a present of gold. The Roman declined ; and next day, 
as he and Pyrrhus were conversing, a curtain behind them suddenly 
drew up, and an elephant, which had been placed there by the king's 
orders, stretched his trunk out over them, and gave a loud roar, Fa- 
bricius, who had never seen one of these huge animals, only stepped 
aside, and said with a smile to the king, '^ Your gold did not move me 
yesterday, nor your beast to-day," 



PYRRHUS IN SICILY. 165 

and I am undone," cried Pyrrhus, who returned to Taren- 
tum without making any attempt on the Roman camp. 

The situation of Pyrrhus was now rather precarious: he 
had lost the flower of his troops ; he could not reckon on his 
Italian allies, who had even plundered his camp during the 
last action ; the Gauls had invaded Macedonia and menaced 
all Greece, and he could not draw any troops from Epirus ; 
while the Romans had concluded an alliance with the Cartha- 
ginians, and a Punic fleet of one hundred and thirty triremes 
was now off" the coast of Italy. On the other hand, strong 
inducements were held out to him to pass over into Sicily, 
and deliver it from the yoke of the Carthaginians. The 
Romans, on their side, owing to the heavy burden of taxation 
consequent on the war, were extremely desirous of peace. 
Just at this time, (474,) we are told,* Pyrrhus' physician sent 
secretly to the consuls C. Fabricius and Q,. ^Emilius, offering 
for a reward to poison his master. The consuls, abhorring 
the treason, gave information of it to the king. Pyrrhu^ 
immediately despatched Cineas to Rome with his thanks to 
the senate ; he gave gifts and clothes to all his prisoners, and 
sent them home with him. Cineas was also the bearer of 
rich presents to the principal persons of both sexes at Rome. 
These presents were, however, all rejected ; the friendship 
of the Romans was to be had without gifts, it was replied, if 
Pyrrhus quitted Italy. The prisoners of his allies, however, 
were released in exchange, and a truce concluded. 

Pyrrhus was now at liberty to accept the invitation of the 
Siciliotes. He left Italy, where he had spent two years and 
four months ; and, passing over to Sicily, remained there 
three years, and made himself master of nearly the whole 
island. During his absence the Roman arms, under Fabri- 
cius and other leaders, were directed with success against his 
Italian allies. At length, finding fortune becoming adverse 
to him in Sicily, and being urged by the prayers of the Ta- 
rentines and his other allies, he returned to Italy (477) with 
an army of 20,000 foot and 3000 horse, a portion of which 
he sent into Lucania against the consul Lentulus, while, with 
the remainder, he advanced to engage the other consul, 
M'. Curius Dentatus, who was encamped near Beneventum 
in Samnium. 

Curius occupied a strong position on a height, intending 

* There is great contradiction in the various accounts of this trans- 
action, Niebuhr says that it was a mere fiction to open communica- 
tions, and was so understood by all parties. 



166 HISTORY OF ROME. 

to await the arrival of his colleague. It was the intention 
of Pyrrhus to attack him at daybreak with some elephants 
and picked troops. A dream, it is said, which he had as he 
slumbered in the beginning of the night, terrified him, and 
he wished to give up the project ; but his officers urging on 
him the impolicy of allowing the two Roman armies to join, 
he sent forward the troops. To reach the heights behind 
the Roman camp, they had to go a round through dense 
woods, guided by torch light. They lost their way, their 
torches burned out, and it was broad day when they reached 
their destination. Being wearied with their march, they 
were easily put to flight. The consul then came down into 
the plain to engage the main army ; the Romans were victo- 
rious on one wing, but the other was driven back to the camp 
by the phalanx and the elephants. Here a shower of arrows, 
bearing burning wax and tar, was hurled on the beasts, 
which growing furious carried confusion into the ranks of 
the phalanx. The rout was now complete, and Pyrrhus' 
camp was taken. The king soon after (478) quitted Italy 
with but 6000 foot and 500 horse, and two years later he 
lost his life in an attempt on the city of Argos.* 

In the course of the succeeding nine years the Roman 
dominion was established over the south and east of Italy, 
but few of the particulars have been transmitted to us. 

The Italian states stood in different relations to Rome. 
In general they held all their lands in full property, paying 
no land-tax ; but in a number of cases a portion of their 
territory had been converted into Roman public land, and 
assigned to colonists or occupied in the usual manner. They 
were governed by their own laws and magistrates ; but they 
had to supply troops, in rated proportions, when Rome was 
at war, and arm and pay, and perhaps feed them. They 
were named Allies,t (>S^ocz«,) as distinct from the Latins, {No- 
men Laiinum,\) who stood on a somewhat different footing. 
The infantry of the Latins and Allies in a Roman army 
usually equalled that of the legions in number ; the cavalry 

* History of Greece, p. 439. 

t It seems probable that the term Allies applied only to the Sabellian 
peoples and those of Southern Italy, and that it did not include the 
Tuscans, Umbrians, or Italian Greeks ; perhaps not even the Brut- 
tians, as being half-Greeks. None, therefore, but genuine Italians 
could serve in the Roman armies. 

X The proper expression was soc'ii et (or ac) nomen Latinum, as in 
Sallust and other accurate writers ; the socii nominis Latini of Livy is 
quite incorrect. 



CENSORSHIP OF AP. CLAUDIUS. ]67 

was thrice as numerous. Their contingents were always 
commanded by their own officers. 



During the period at the end of which we are now arrived, 
considerable alterations were made in the political and mili- 
tary systems of the Romans. These we will now proceed to 
explain. 

In the year 442, Ap. Claudius, afterwards named the Blind, 
(CiBcus,) from the misfortune which befel him, was made 
censor with C. Plautius. He distinguished his censorship 
by commencing the celebrated Appian Road, which was 
gradually extended from Rome to Capua, and thence across 
the peninsula to Brundisium, a distance of three hundred 
and sixty miles, paved the whole way with square blocks of 
stone, and justly named the Queen of Roads. He likewise 
made the first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, at Rome; the 
water being conveyed under ground from some springs near 
the Praenestine road, about eight miles from the city. 

But the changes which Appius attempted to make in the 
constitution are of more importance in a political point of 
view. When selecting the senate, in virtue of his office, he 
omitted his enemies, and put in their place the sons of freed- 
raen ; but all united against this innovation, and the consuls 
of the next year called the original members of the senate 
•Appius, being thus foiled, took another and a more perni- 
cious course : he distributed the freedmen throughout all the 
tribes, and thus in effect put the elections entirely into their 
hands. To understand this, we must observe that the serari- 
ans, among whom the Libertini or freedmen were included, 
were a very numerous and even wealthy body ; for all the arts 
and trades at Rome were exercised by them, the plebeians 
being restricted to agriculture. They were divided into a 
numlDer of guilds, of which that of the Scribae, or notaries, 
was the raost important, as nearly all the public and private 
legal writing at Rome, of which there was a great quantity, 
was exercised by them. The notaries were now directed by 
Cn. Flavins, one of the ablest men of his time, who acted in 
concert with Ap. Claudius. When we reflect then that the_ 
plebeians were continually reduced by service in war, from 
which the serarians were exempt, and that they also unwill- 



168 HISTORY OF ROME. 

ingly left their farms to come to attend elections at Rome, 
we may easily see how the aerarians of a rural tribe, who 
were numerous and always on the spot, could determine its 
vote. As a proof, Cn. Flavius himself was in 449 made 
curule sedile, and, to annoy the genuinie Romans still more, 
his colleague was Q.. Anicius of Praeneste, therefore a mere 
municeps, and one who had actually been in arms against 
Rome a few years before.* On this occasion the senators 
laid aside their gold rings, the knights their silver horse- 
trappings, in token of mourning, and it was unanimously 
resolved to change the law of election. 

It is by no means unlikely that Appius, who was at all 
times a strenuous opposer of the claims of the plebeiail 
nobility, acted on this occasion as the agent of the small 
knot of patrician oligarchs who wished to exclude the rival 
nobles from places of honor and dignity. Oligarchs thus 
situated usually seek to make allies of the inferior people ; 
and Appius and his friends may have regarded the debase- 
ment of the plebeian tribes, by mixing freedmen through 
them, as the surest means to attain their ends ; for neither 
they nor their descendants could presume, it was supposed, 
to aspire to the consulate, and their enmity to the plebeian 
order might be reckoned on with some confidence, for keep- 
ing them from conferring it on the plebeian nobility. 

Cn. Flavius had gained his popularity by two acts of real* 
benefit to the people. The dies fasti, or days on which 
courts sat and justice was administered, were at this time 
divided in a very perplexing way through the year, and peo- 
ple could only learn them from the mouth of the pontiffs. 
Flavius made a calendar, in which the nature of each day 
was marked, and hung it up publicly in the Forum, thus con- 
ferring an important boon on the whole people. He further 
made and published a collection of all the legal forms in civil 
actions. It is said that it was at the impulse of Appius that 
he made the Fasti public. f 

In 449, Q,. Fabius and P. Decius were created censors, in 
order to obviate the evil caused by Appius. They separated 
the whole of the market-faction, [Uirha forensis,) as the 
serarians were called, from the rural tribes, and placed them 
in the four city-tribes ; and the measure was considered of 
such importance, that Fabius derived the name of Maximus 
(Most great) from it. We will endeavor to show in what 

* Pliny, H. N. xxxiii. 6. t Pliny, vt supra. 



CHANGE IN THE CONSTITUTION. 169 

its importance consisted, and that it was only part of a great 
change in the constitution.* 

In consequence of the change in the value of money, of 
the extension of the franchise to such a number of people by 
the formation of new tribes, of the necessity of increasing 
the number of those liable to serve in the legions, and from 
other causes, the Servian constitution of the Classes was no 
longer adapted to the Roman people. It was therefore 
abandoned, and in its place a new one, founded on the tribes, 
was substituted. f The tribes were divided each into two cen- 
turies, one of old and one of young men : the Six Suffrages 
remained ; all who had a million of asses and upwards of 
property, were placed in the twelve plebeian equestrian 
centuries ; all who had property between that sum and 4000 
asses had votes in the tribes. The centuries, with the 
exception of the Suffrages, were divided into two Classes^ 
the first containing the rural tribes and plebeian knights, the 
second the city-tribes ; the centuries of the former were 
termed Primo Vocdtce, those of the latter Postremo Vocdtce. 
Those of the rural tribes decided by lot which should vote 
first; and the successful one was named the Prserogative, as 
being Jii-st ashed by the presiding magistrate ; its vote gen- 
erally decided the others. The order of voting was, the 
first class, the Suffrages, the second class.| The whole 
number of centuries at this time, when there were thirty-one 
tribes, was eighty, i. e. six patrician and twelve plebeian 
equestrian, fifty-four rural, and eight city centuries. § 

The new-modelled comitia of the tribes differed from the 
original one in four points ; viz. the separation of the ple- 
beian knights, and the participation of the patricians; the 

* In what follows we give a hypothesis of Niebuhr's; for the proofs 
and development we must refer to his own work, vol. iii. 374 — 409. 
(German.) 

t That the Servian constitution was abandoned longbefore the end 
of the republic, is proved by the following passages: Liv. i. 43; xxiv. 
7 and 9 ; xxvi. 22 ; xxvii. 6. Cic. Rullus, ii. 2. Plancius, 20. 

X Cic. Phil. ii. 33. 

§ The four city-tribes were the Suburane, Esquihne, Colline, and 
Palatine ; the fifteen original rural ones were the _^milian, Camilian, 
Cluentian, Cornelian, Fabian, Galerian, Horatian, Lemonian, Mene- 
nian. Papirian, Puninian, Romilian, Sergian,Veturian, Voltinian. The 
Claudian was added in 250 ; the Crustumine m 259 ; the Stellatme, 
Tromentine, Sabatine, and Arniensian in 368; the Pomptine and 
Publilian in 397 ; the Mscian and Scaptian in 421 ; the Ufentine and 
Falerine in 435 ; the Terentine and Aniensian in 453, and the Velme 
and Quirine about 514 ; thus making 35 in all. 

15 V 



170 HISTORY OF ROME. 

division into centuries of old and young men ; the exclusion 
of the Proletarians : the employment of the auspices. We 
may see that it retained as much of the Servian constitution 
as was possible ; that it was a nearer approach to democracy 
is not to be denied, but this was unavoidable ; yet there was 
not actually universal suffrage, as in the Greek democracies; 
and as, except on some very particular occasions, it could 
be only the people of property in the rural tribes that were 
at Rome when the comitia were held, the elections and the 
passing of laws must have lain almost entirely with them. 
The wisdom of Fabius is proved by the length of time that 
the system continued to work well. Its corruption pro- 
ceeded from causes which he could not have foreseen or 
obviated. 

The changes in the military system during this period 
were also considerable. They were to the follov^^ing effect. 

The unwieldy, helpless nature of the phalanx had at some 
time, perhaps in the Gallic war, become apparent, and it was 
converted into a more active form. At the time of the Latin 
war we find the legion thus constituted.* It consisted of 
five cohorts or battalions, the Hastats, Principes, Triarians, 
Rorarians, and Accensi ; the first two were named Antesig- 
nani and Antepilani, because they were stationed before the 
standards [signa) and the Triarians, who were also named 
Pilani from their weapon, the pilum.f The Antesignani 
consisted each of fifteen maniples or thirty centuries; and in 
the plan, which supposed thirty tribes, each century con- 
tained thirty men with the centurion ; and the cohort there- 
fore 900 men and 30 officers. As every thing in the Roman 
institutions was regular and uniform, we must suppose the 
remaining cohorts to be of equal strength; and this gives 
a total of 4500 common men for the legion ; of which 
2400 (viz. 600 Hastats, 900 Principes, and 900 Triarians) 
were troops of the line; 1200 (viz. 300 Hastats and 900 
Rorarians) light troops ; | the 900 Accensi were merely a 
depot-battalion that followed the legion. Two legions thus 
composed formed a consular army. 

The Hastats derived their name from the spears [JiastcB) 

* Livy, viii. 8. 

t The piluvi was a weapon composed of a handle of wood three 
cubits long, and an iron head of the same length, one half of which 
projected beyond the wood. 

t Niebuhr gives these numbers 2200 and 1100 ; but in this case 300 
Hastats remain unaccounted for. 



THE ROMAN LEGION. 171 

which they bore ; the Principes were so called as being of 
the first class;* the Triarians as being formed out of the 
first three classes,! for the Romans in the period of this 
legion, still served according to the classes ; the Rorarians, 
or Sprinklers, from their task of showering {rordre) their 
missiles in the beginning of the action.^ The 40 centuries 
of the first class gave 30 for the Principes, 10 for the Tri- 
arians ; the second and third class gave each 10 for the 
Triarians, their remaining 20 being the Hastats of the line. 
Of the forty centuries of the last two classes, 10 were light 
Hastats, and 30 Rorarians. 

The maniples of the three cohorts of troops of the line 
were drawn up in quincunx, thus : 

nnnnnnnnn 

nnnnnnnnn 
nnnnnnnnn 

with lanes or intervals between them. Each maniple as 
consisting of two centuries, had two centurions to command 
it, and a standard-bearer. The maniples of the Hastats 
contained 40 shielded men, that is, men of the second and 
third class,^ 20 armed only with spear and dart, that is, 
of the fourth class ; the Principes bore spears and long 
cut-and-thrust swords; the Triarians pila; the Rorarians 
slings, as being of the fifth class. When in battle array, 
the light troops were in front, and began the action ; they 
then retired through the lanes : the Hastats succeeded, and 
when they were wearied, they fell back through the Prin- 
cipes, who then came into action ; and if the enemy still 
resisted, the Triarians, who had hitherto been sitting under 
their standards, rose, the Principes and Hastats retired 
through the intervals of their maniples, which then closed ; 
and the Triarians, having hurled their ^zYa on the wearied 
foe, fell on them sword in hand. 

About the middle of the fifth century the legion under- 
went a further modification, and became such as it was 
when opposed to Hannibal, and as it is described by Polyb- 

* " Scutati omnes, insignibus maxime armis." (Livy.) This shows 
that they were men of property. 

t Not from their position, for then their name would have been Ter- 
tiarians. 

i " Ideo quod ante rorat quam pluit." Varro L. vi. p. 92. Bip. ed. 

§ See the system, p. 51. 



172 HISTORY OF ROME. 

ius.* Fabius Maximus and Decius were probably the au- 
thors of this change also. 

As the class system was no longer suited to the levies, 
they were now made from the tribes, from each of which 
four centuries, or 120 men, were selected for each legion ; 
so that when the tribes were thirty-five, the legion contained 
4200 common men. These were all armed by the state, 
and classified according to their age; the youngest being 
the light troops, or Velites, who began the battle ; the next 
in age the Hastats, and so on, the Triarians being the 
oldest mer^ The Hastats and Principes carried pila and 
swords, the Triarians were armed with spears. Of the 4200 
men of the legion, 1200, or twenty maniples, were Has- 
tats ; the same number Principes ; one half of it, or 600, 
Triarians ; the remaining 1200 Velites. The cavalry of 
each legion consisted of 300 men divided into ten troops, 
(turmcB,) each of 30 men, and commanded by three decurions. 
Its station in action was on the wings. Each legion had six 
tribunes, each maniple two centurions and two ensigns : 
legates [legdii) or lieutenants, commanded the legions under 
the general. The array of battle still continued to be in 
quincunx. 

As the century continued to be drawn up three in front 
and ^en deep, a question arises how it was to act ; and it 
can only have been in the following manner. The century 
also was drawn up in quincunx, 



TV" TT 

thus forming ten lines, each man being allotted a space of 
three feet every way. When those in the first line had 
thrown their pila, they fell back, and the second line step- 
ped forward and took their place, and on so till the whole 
ten lines had engaged ; and if there was a supply of pila, 
the same course may have been gone through over again ; 
the same was the case when they came to employ their 
swords. 

What the literature of Rome was at this period we have 
not the means of ascertaining. Brief, dry chronicles of pub- 
lic events were kept ; the funeral orations made over men 

* Polybius, vi. 10— 2C. xviii. 13—15. 



ROMAN LITERATURE. 173 

of rank were preserved by their families; a moral poem of 
App. Claudius the Blind, and his speech against peace with 
Pyrrhus, were extant in Cicero's days. Cato and Varro* 
say that it was the custom of the Romans to sing at their ban- 
quets old songs containing the praises of the illustrious men 
of former times. It is the opinion of Niebuhrt that the poems 
from which he supposes the history of the kings and of the 
early days of the republic to have been framed, were the 
production of plebeian poets, and composed after the time 
of the capture of the city by the Gauls ; the middle of the 
fifth century, which was the golden age of Roman art, he 
thinks may also have been that of Roman poetry. The 
measure in which the Romans composed their poems, and 
which is named Saturnian Verse, continued to be used to 
the middle of the seventh century of the city ; but we have 
very few specimens of it remaining, and its nature is but 
imperfectly understood. 

* The former in Cicero, Tusc. Qusest. iv. 2. Brutus, 19 ; the latter in 
Nonius, s. V. Assa voce. From the passage of the Brutus " qucc rnultis 
scEculis ante suam (Catonis) CBtatevi,'' it would seem to follow that the 
custom had gone out of use long before Cato's time ; yet Dionysius 
(i. 79) plainly speaks of Ballads of Romulus and Remus as being still 
eung in his time ; and Horace (Carm. iv. 15, 25 — 32) seems to speak of 
the practice of singing the praises of the renowned of ancient days atJ 
still continuing. , 

t History of Rome, i. p. 257 

15* 



THE 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



PART III. 



% 



THE REPUBLIC — CONQUEST OF CAR- 
THAGE AND MACEDONIA. 



CHAPTER I. 

CARTHAGE. ^ FIRST PUNIC WAR. SIEGE OF AGRIGENTUM. 

ROMAN FLEET. NAVAL VICTORY OF DUILIUS. INVASION 

OF AFRICA. DEFEAT AND CAPTURE OF REGULUS. LOSSES 

OF THE ROMANS AT SEA. BATTLE AT PANORMUS. DEATH 

OF REGULUS. DEFEAT OF CLAUDIUS. VICTORY AT THE 

^GATIAN ISLES. PEACE WITH CARTHAGE. EFFECTS OF 

THE WAR. 

The present portion of our history will be chiefly oc- 
cupied by the wars between Rome and Carthage ; we will 
therefore commence it by a brief sketch of the political con- 
stitution and history of the latter state. 

Carthage was a colony of the Phceniciaiis f founded on 
the north coast of Africa, about a century before the build- 
ing of Rome. The colony was led, it is said, by Elissa, or 
Dido, the sister of the king of Tyre : a spot of land under 
payment of tribute, was obtained from the original inhabit- 

* The authorities for this Part are so various that we must mention 
them at each chapter. Livy (partly in epitome) and the epitomators 
are the only consecutive ones. The first Punic war is related in detail 
by Polybius, i. 1 — 64. . 

t The Greeks called the Tyrians and Sidonians <J>oivi;«£?, on account 
of their red or purple garments ; hence the Latin Pani and punicus. 



CARTHAGE. 175 

ants of the country, and a town built,* which rapidly in- 
creased in size and wealth. The people first freed them- 
selves from the tribute, then reduced the adjoining tribes, 
and gradually extended their dominion over the coast of 
Africa from the confines of Cyrene to the Atlantic. The 
Balearic isles and Sardinia also owned the dominion of Car- 
thage, and she early had settlements on the north coast of 
Sicily. 

The constitution of Carthage obtained the praise of Aris- 
totle. It was, like those of the most flourishing commercial 
states of antiquity, a mixture of aristocracy and democracy^ 
with a preponderance of the former, which was composed 
of the families of greatest wealth and influence, from whom 
the persons were chosen who were to fill the chief offices 
in the state, and who all served without salary. The senate 
was formed out of the principal families, and its members 
had their seats for life. It was presided over by the Sujfetes,i 
magistrates' who are compared to the Roman consuls and 
the Spartan kings. If the suffetes and senate disagreed, the 
matter was brought before the people, whose decision was 
conclusive, on which occasion any one who pleased might 
speak and give his opinion. The suffetes frequently went 
out in the command of the armies, but the office of general 
was distinct from theirs. There was a magistracy of one 
hundred judges, to whom the generals had to give an ac- 
count of their conduct in war ; and nowhere does the Punic 
character appear in a more odious light than in the cruel 
punishments inflicted on those whose only fault had been 
their ill fortune; nothing was more common than to crucify 
a defeated general. These Hundred, who resembled the 
Spartan Ephors, became like them in course of time the 
tyrants of the state, and helped to cause its ruin. 

The troops of Carthage were chiefly mercenaries hired 
in Africa, Spain, Gaul, and Italy. The Carthaginians 
were remarkably precious of the blood of their own citizens, 

* The fort or citadel of the town was naturally named Betzura, (fort,) 
of which the Greeks made Byrsa, (^vQOa,) and as this signified an 
ox-hide, they invented the tale of Dido's deceiving the Africans by 
asking for as much land as an ox-hide would cover, and when they 
gave it, cutting the hide into thongs. This story has gone the round 
of the world. "Hassan Sabah, the chief of the Assassins, thus got the 
fort of Alamut in Persia, the Enghsh (the Persians say) Calcutta, Hen- 
gist and Horsa their settlement in the Isle of Thanet, and one of the 
colonies in New England its land from the Indians. 

t The Hebrew Shofetim . or Judges. 



176 HISTORY OF ROME. 

while they lavished that of their mercenaries with reckless 
prodigality. 

The first attempt made by the Carthaginians to extend 
their dominion in Sicily was at the time of Xerxes' invasion 
of Greece, when they sustained a most decisive defeat at 
Himera from Gelo of Syracuse. They refrained from any 
farther efforts till the people of Segesta, (Egesta), who had 
called the Athenians into Sicily, applied, on their defeat, to 
Carthage for aid against Selinus. The aid was granted ; 
and this was the occasion of a succession of wars for more 
than a century between the Carthaginians and the Sicilian 
Greeks, in which the former acquired the dominion over 
the greater part of the island. We are now to see them in 
conflict with the mistress of Italy. 

The war between these two powerful rivals commenced 
in a manner little creditable to .Rome ; the following was 
the occasion. After the death of Agathocles of Syracuse, 
the Campanian mercenaries who had been in his pay were 
dismissed. They left Syracuse as if they were returning 
home, but instead of doing so they treacherously seized the 
town ~ of Messana ; they partly killed, partly expelled the 
men, and divided the women, children, and property among 
themselves. The name v/hich they assumed was Mamer- 
tines ;*■ they conquered several places in the island, their 
numbers rapidly increased, and when their countrymen had 
imitated their treachery in the opposite town of Rhegium,t 
a strict alliance was formed between the two freebooting 
communities. But when the Romans had destroyed their 
Italian allies, and they had themselves sustained a complete 
defeat from Hiero of Syracuse, they saw the necessitj of 
foreign aid if they would escape destruction. A part of them 
applied to Anno, the Punic admiral, and put the citadel 
into his hands; another party sent off to Rome, offering 
possession of the town, and imploring aid on the score of 
consanguinity. (488.) 

The Roman Senate was greatly perplexed how to act. 

" From Mamers, or Mars, the god of war. 

t In the first year of the war with Pyrrhus, the eighth legion, consist- 
ing of Campanians, had been placed in garrison at Rhegium. Under 
the pretext of a conspiracy among the inhabitants, they massacred the 
men, and reduced the women and children to slavery, and casting off 
their allegiance acted as an independent state. In 482, however, the 
consul C. Genucius stormed the town, and he led the 300 who remain- 
ed alive of the legion to Rome, where they were scourged and be- 
headed, at the rate of fifty a day. 



FIRST PUNIC WAR. 177 

It was of the utmost importance to prevent the Carthagin- 
ians from becoming masters of Messana ; but, on the other 
hand, Rome's policy had hitherto been in the main upright 
and honorable, and with what face could they who had just 
punished so severely their own legion for an act of treachery, 
come forward as the protectors of those who had set them 
the example? They long pondered, and could come to no 
conclusion; the consuls then brought the matter before the 
people, who, beguiled by the prospect of booty held out, and 
the apparent ease of the enterprise, and heedless of national 
honor, voted the required aid.*" 

The charge of relieving Messana was committed to the 
consul App. Claudius ; and one of his legates proceeding 
with some troops and ships to Rhegium, after one ineffec- 
tual attempt succeeded in crossing the strait and getting 
into the town. Hanno was invited to a conference, at 
which he was treacherously seized, and only released on 
condition of his giving up the citadel, an act of weakness for 
which he was crucified on his return to Carthage. But 
another Hanno now came with a large fleet, and landed an 
army, which, in conjunction with the troops of Hiero, king 
of Syracuse, (with whom an alliance was made,) besieged 
the city on the land side, while the fleet lay at Pelorus. 

The consul arrived shortly after, and taking advantage 
of the night landed his leo;ions close to the camp of the 
Syracusans. He drew them up unobserved, and in the 
morning totally defeated the troops of the king, who fled to 
his capital; whither, after having defeated the Punic army 
also, Appius followed him, and sitting down before it laid 
waste the lands. 

The two consuls of the following year (489) landed in 
Sicily, where sixty-seven towns, subject to Hiero or the 
Carthaginians, placed themselves under the dominion of 
Rome. They approached Syracuse, and Hiero, in com- 
pliance with the wishes of his people, made proposals of 
peace, which was granted on his paying 200 talents, re- 
leasing all the Roman prisoners, and becoming the ally of 
Rome. The Carthaginians made no efforts to impede the 
progress of the Roman arms in Sicily ; but they were ac- 

* '* This vote is an eternal disgrace to Rome, and a sign that even 
then the constitution was beginning to incline too much to the demo- 
cratic side ; although in the interior of the state no disadvantage to the 
republic thence arose for a long time to come." Niebuhr, iii. 660 
(German.) 

w 



178 HISTORY OF ROME. 

tively engaged in making preparations for a vigorous cam- 
paign. They hired troops in Liguria, Gaul, and Spain, 
which, joined with their African troops and the light Nu- 
midian cavalry, they sent over to Sicily (490) under Han- 
nibal the son of Gisco, while another army was collected in 
Sardinia for the invasion of Italy. 

Hannibal made Agrigentum his head-quarters. Leaving 
the defence of Italy to the praetor, the two consuls, L. Pos- 
tumius and Q,. Mamilius, passed over to Sicily, and came 
and encamped within a mile of Agrigentum. Having re- 
pelled an attack of the enemy, they formed two separate 
camps, united by a double ditch and a line of posts; their 
magazines were in the town of Erbessus, which lay at no 
great distance in their rear. They remained thus for five 
months, when, at the urgent desire of Hannibal, whose 
troops were beginning to suffer from hunger, Hanno was 
sent to Sicily with a force of 50,000 foot, 6000 horse, and 
sixty elephants. He advanced to Heraclea, and took the 
town of Erbessus : the Romans were now reduced to great 
straits for provisions ; an epidemic also broke out among 
them, and the consuls were thinking of giving over the siege ; 
but Hiero, whose all was at stake, made every effort to sup- 
ply them, and they resolved to persevere. Hanno now en- 
camped within little more than a mile of them, and the 
two armies remained for two months opposite each other. 
At length, urged by repeated signals and messages from 
Hannibal, describing the distress in the town, Hanno re- 
solved to hazard an engagement ; the Romans, who were 
suffering nearly as much, eagerly accepted it, and after a 
hard-fought battle victory remained with them. Hanno 
fled to Heraclea, leaving his camp in the hands of the victors, 
thirty of his elephants were killed, three wounded, and 
eleven taken. During the battle Hannibal made a fruitless 
attack on the Roman lines ; but he soon after took advan- 
tage of the darkness of the winter nights to break through 
them, and get off with what remained of his army. The 
Romans then stormed the town, and sold such of the in- 
habitants as survived into slavery. 

Several of the towns of the interior now came over to the 
Romans, but those on the coast stood too much in awe of 
the Punic fleet to follow their example : the coast of Italy 
also suffered from its. descents, and the senate saw that they 
must meet the Carthacrinians on their own element if thev 
would end the contest with advantage. Bat the Punic 



NAVAL VICTORY OF DUILIUS. 179 

ships of war were quinqueremes , and as the Romans and 
their Greek subjects had never had larger ships than tri- 
remes, their carpenters could not build the former kind 
without a model. At length (492) a Carthaginian ship of 
war, having gone ashore on the coast of Bruttium, fell into 
their hands, and with this for a model, in the space of sixty 
days from the time the timber was cut, they built a fleet of 
one hundred and thirty ships. Meantime stages had been 
erected, on which the destined rowers were taught their art. 
When the fleet was ready, the consul Cn. Cornelius Scipio 
sailed over to Messana with seventeen ships, and the rest 
followed along the coast as fast as they could get to sea. 
While he remained at Messana envoys came, inviting him to 
take possession of the LiparEean isles, and he inconsiderately 
sailed over to them : the Punic admiral Hannibal, who was 
at Panormus, hearing he was there, sent twenty ships after 
him, which closed him up in the port during the night. 
The Romans in terror left their ships and fled to the land, 
and the consul was obliged to surrender, Hannibal now 
conceived such a contempt for the Romans as sailors that 
he thought he might easily destroy their whole navy. He 
therefore sailed along the coast of Italy with fifty ships to 
reconnoitre ; but happening, as he doubled a cape, to fall in 
with their fleet in order of battle, he lost the greater part 
of his ships, and escaped with diflficulty with the remainder. 

The Romans were well aware of their own inferiority as 
seamea, and they knew that their only chance of success 
was by bringing a sea to resemble a land fight. For this 
purpose they devised the following plan. In the fore part 
of each ship they set up a mast, twenty-four feet high and 
nine inches in diameter, with a pulley-wheel at the top of 
it ; to this mast was fastened a ladder thirty-six feet long and 
four broad, covered with boards nailed across it, and having 
on each side a bulwark as high as a man's knee ; at the end 
of it was a strong piece of iron with a sharp spike and a 
ring on it, through which a rope ran to the mast, and over 
the wheel, by which it could be raised or lowered. This 
Corvus or raven, as the machine was called, was to be let 
fall on the enemy's ship, which the spike would then hold 
fast, and the soldiers holding their shields over the bulwarks, 
to protect them, could board along it. 

The other consul, C. Duilius, took the command of the 
fleet, and hearing that the Carthaginians were plundering 
the lands of Mylse, he sailed to engage them. As soon as 



180 HISTORY OF ROME. 

they saw him, they came out with one hundred and thirty 
ships, as to a certain victory, not even condescending to 
form in line of battle. At the sight of the ravens they 
paused a little, but they soon came on and attacked the 
foremost ships. The ravens were then let fall ; the Roman 
soldiers boarded along them : the Africans could ill with- 
stand them, and they took thirty ships, among which was 
that of Hannibal, the admiral, a septireme which had be- 
longed to king Pyrrhus. The rest of the Punic fleet ma- 
ncEUvred, hoping to be able to attack to advantage ; but they 
either could not get near the Roman ships, or if they did, 
were caught by the ravens. They at last fled, with the loss 
of fourteen ships sunk, three thousand men slain, and seven 
thousand captured. The joy of the Romans at this their 
first naval victory was evinced by the permanent honor 
assigned to Duilius; he was permitted for the rest of his 
life to have a torch carried before him and be preceded by a 
flute-player when returning home from supper. 

After this victory the Romans divided their forces, and the 
consul L. Scipio sailed (493) with a fleet to make an attack 
on Sardinia, where he destroyed a Punic fleet and made a 
great number of captives. Meantime the Carthaginians were 
recovering their power in Sicily ; but the consul of the next 
year, (494,) A. Atilius Calatinus, restored the Roman pre- 
ponderance there. The towns of Mytistratum, Enna, Ca^ 
marma, and others, which had gone over to the Carthagin- 
ians, were taken, and their inhabitants massacred. 

The following year (495) little was done on land ; the 
Carthaginians had, however, reestablished their sway over 
one half of the island. A naval victory gained by the con- 
sul C. Atilius Regulus ofl" the port of Tyndaris inspirited 
the Romans to make a bold attempt to terminate the war 
by an invasion of Africa. They therefore (496) collected 
330 ships, each carrying 300 seamen, which sailing round 
Pelorus and Pachynus, took 40,000 soldiers on board on the 
coast of Sicily. The Carthaginians had assembled at Lily- 
bfEum a fleet of 350 ships, carrying 150,000 men to oppose 
them. It was the greatest military effort that the ancient 
world ever saw.* 

The Roman fleet was divided into four squadrons; the 

* The plan of invading Africa during a war with the Carthaginians 
had been successfully put in practice by Agathocles about fifty years 
before this time. (01. 117, 3.) See Diodor. xx. 3, et seq. It was this 
that doubtless suggested the idea to the Romans. 



INVASION OF AFRICA. 181 

first two were commanded by the consuls M. Atilius Reg- 
ulus and L. Manilas in person. The two admiral-ships 
sailed side by side ; each was followed by his squadron, in 
a single line, each ship keeping farther out to sea than the 
one before it, so that the two lines formed an acute angle ; 
and the triangle was completed by the third squadron sail- 
ing abreast, and having the horse-transports in tow; the 
fourth squadron closed the figure, being in a single line, 
and extending on each side beyond the base. The Panic 
admirals, Hanno and Hamilcar, likewise divided their fleet 
into four squadrons, which failed parallel, Hanno com- 
manding the right, Hamilcar the left wing. The two 
central squadrons, by a feigned flight, drew the ^rst two 
Roman ones after them, and thus broke the triangle; the 
Punic left wing then attacked the third squadron, while the 
ricrht winor sailed round and fell on the fourth. As the 
Punic ships which had fled now turned round and fought, 
there was a threefold engagement. At length the first two 
Roman squadrons, having beaten those to which they were 
opposed, came to the aid of the third and fourth, and the 
Carthaginians were forced to retire, with the loss of thirty 
ships sunk and sixty-four taken ; that of the Romans was 
twenty-four ships. 

The consuls returned to Sicily to repair the ships they 
had taken, and to complete the crews of the whole fleet. 
They then made sail for Africa ; and as the Punic fleet was 
too weak to oppose them, they landed safely on the east 
side of the Hermai'c cape, (Cape Bon,) whence advancing 
southwards they took the town of Clupea, which was de- 
serted at their approach, and made it their place of arms. 
The country thence to Carthage was like a garden, full 
of cattle, corn, vines, and every natural production, and 
St added all over with the elegant country-seats of the citi- 
zens of Carthage. The whole of this lovely region was 
speedily pillaged and destroyed, and thousands of captives 
were dragged to Clupea, the»Carthaginians not venturing 
out to the defence of their property. 

It was the usage of the Romans for at least one consular 
army to return to Rome for the winter and be discharged, 
and they would not depart from it on the present occasion. 
To the messenger therefore whom the consuls sent home for 
instructions, it was replied, that Manlius should return with 
his army and the greater part of the fleet, while Regulus 
should remain in Africa. It is said that Regulus earnestly 
16 



182 HlSTORr OF ROME. 

applied for leave to return, as his little plebeian farm was 
going to ruin for want of his presence; but that the govern- 
ment undertook to bear the expense of its cultivation, and to 
support his family while he was away in the service of the 
state. He therefore remained, with 15,000 foot, 500 horse, 
and 40 ships. 

The Carthaginians having recalled Hamilcar from Sicily, 
he brought with him 5000 foot and 500 horse ; and being 
joined in command with Hasdrubal and Bostar, he advanced 
to oppose Regulus, who was now (497) besieging a town 
named Adis, close by the lake of Tunis.* Instead of keep- 
ing to the plain, where their elephants and cavalry could act 
to advantage, the Punic generals took their post on the hills, 
and were in consequence defeated, with the loss of 17,000 
men killed, and 5000 men and 18 elephants taken. Regulus 
now conquered Tunis : seventy-four other towns submitted 
to him ; he ravaged the country at his will ; the Numidians 
revolted ; the country people all fled into Carthage, where 
famine began to be felt. 

Regulus, fearing that his successor would come out and 
have the glory of taking Carthage, sent to propose a peace. 
Some of the principal men came to his camp to treat, but he 
offered only the most humiliating terms. He required that 
Carthage should acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, pay 
a yearly tribute, retain but one ship of war, give up all claim 
on Sicily and Sardinia, release the Roman prisoners, and 
redeem her own. The Punic envoys retired without deign- 
ing a reply. 

But the haughtiness of the Roman proconsul was to meet 
its due chastisement. The Carthaginians had sent to Greece 
to hire troops, which now arrived ;. and among them was a 
Spartan named Xanthippus, an officer of some distinction. 
When Xanthippus viewed the condition of the Punic army 
and saw its force, he told his friends, that it was not the 
Romans but their own generals that had been the cause of 



the preceding defeats. Th^ government on learning his 

* On the banks of the Bagrada, said the legend, (Plin. H. N. viii. 14. 
Zonaras viii. 13. Silius Pun. vi. 140,) abode a serpent of the enormous 
length of 120 feet ; and when the soldiers came hither for water, he 
killed or drove them off. It was found necessary to employ the bal- 
lists and other artillery against him, as against a town, and at length 
he was slain. His skin and jaw-bones were brought to Rome, where 
they remained in one of the temples till the time of the Numantine 
war. We must recollect that the first Punic war was the subject 
of Ncevius' poem. 



DEFEAT OF THE ROMANS. 183 

sentiments conceived so high an opinion of his talents, that 
it was resolved to give him the command of the army ; and 
he speedily infused confidence into the minds of the soldiery, 
who readily observed his superiority over their former com- 
manders. In reliance on 100 elephants and a body of 6000 
horse he ventured to offer battle to the Romans,, although he 
had but 14,000 foot, and theirs now amounted to upwards of 
32,000 men. He placed the mercenaries on the right, the 
Punic troops on the left ; the elephants were ranged one 
deep in front of the line, the cavalry and light troops were on 
the flanks. The Romans put their light troops in advance 
against the elephants, and drew up the legionaries much 
deeper than usual ; the horse were on the flanks. The left 
wing of the Romans easily defeated the mercenaries opposed 
to them, and drove them to their camp ; but the Punic horse 
routed that of the Romans, and then fell on the rear of the 
right wing, against the front of which the elephants were 
urged on; and when the Roman soldiers had with great loss 
forced their way through them, they had to encounter the 
dense Carthaginian phalanx. Assailed thus on all sides, 
they at length gave way and fled ; the battle being in the 
plain they were exposed to the elephants and horse, and all 

, were slain but five hundred men, who with the proconsul 
were made prisoners. The left wing, (about 2000 men,) 
which had pursued the mercenaries, made their escape to 
Clupea. Xanthippus, having thus saved Carthage, prudently 
went home soon after to avoid the envy and jealousy which 

/ as a stranger he was sure to excite. ¥/e are told * (but 
surely we cannot believe it) that the Carthaginians rewarded 
him richly, and sent some triremes to convey him and the 
other LacedsBmonians home, but gave secret orders to the 
captains to drown them all on the way, which orders were 
obeyed ! 

The Carthaginians laid siege to Clupea, but the Romans 
defended it gallantly. When intelligence of the defeat 
reached Rome, it was resolved to send a fleet without delay 
to bring off the survivors, and the consuls M. iEmilius Pau- 
lus and Ser. Fulvius Nobilior put to sea with three hundred 
and fifty ships. The Punic fleet engaged them off the Her- 
mai'c cape, and was defeated with the loss of 104 ships sunk, 
30 taken, and 30,000 men^lain or drowned. The Romans 
then landed, and having defeated the Punic army obliged 
them to raise the siege ; but seeing that the country was so 

* Zonoras, viii. 13. Appian, Punica, 3. Silius, Pun. vi. 680. 



184 HISTORY OF ROME. 

exhausted that no supplies could be had, they prepared to 
reembark and depart. 

It was now after the summer solstice, a stormy and peril- 
ous season in the Mediterranean. The pilots earnestly 
advised to avoid the south coast of Sicily, and rather to sail 
along the north coast. But as this was chiefly in the hands 
of the Carthaginians, the consuls would not attend to the 
advice of their pilots. They set sail, and got safely across; 
but on the coast of Camarina the fleet was assailed by so 
furious a tempest that but eighty ships escaped. The whole 
coast thence to Pachynus was covered with wrecks, and with 
the bodies of drowned men. Hiero acted on this occasion 
as a faithful ally, supplying the survivors with food and rai- 
ment and with all necessaries. The remaining ships then 
sailed for Messana. 

The courage of the Carthaginians rose when they heard of 
this misfortune ; they got ready two hundred ships, and sent 
Hasdrubal with his army and one hundred and forty ele- 
phants over to Sicily. The Roman senate, nothing dismayed 
by the loss of their fleet, gave orders to build a new one ; 
and in three months they had one of two hundred and 
twenty ships afloat; with which the consuls Cn. Cornelius 
Scipio and A. Atilius Calatinus (498) sailed to Messana, 
whence, being joined by the ships there, they went and laid 
siege to Panormus. The new town being taken by storm, 
the old town capitulated; those who could pay a ransom of 
two pounds of silver were allowed to depart, leaving their 
property behind ; those who could not pay that sum were 
sold for slaves ; of the former there were 10,000, of the 
latter 13,000. Tyndaris, Soloeis, and some other towns on 
that coast, then submitted. 

The consuls of the next year, (499,) Cn. Servilius and C. 
Sempronius, sailed over, and made various descents on the 
coast of Africa. But their ignorance of the ebb and flood 
in the little Syrtis was near causing the loss of the whole 
fleet ; the ships went aground on the shoals, and it was only 
by throwing all the burdens overboard that they were got off. 
They then sailed round Lilybaeum to Panormus, and thence 
boldly stretched across for the coast of Italy; but off Cape 
Palinurus they encountered a fearful storm, in which they 
lost upwards of one hundred an,d fifty ships. The senate 
and people, quite cast down by this last calamity, resolved to 
send no more fleets to sea, bat to keep only sixty ships to 
convoy transports and guard the coast of Italy. 



DEATH OF REGULUS. 185 

Nothing of importance marks the next two years ; but in 
502, Hasdrubal, encouraged by the want of spirit shown of 
late by the Romans, led his army from Lilybasum toward 
Panormus. The Roman proconsul L. Caecilius Metellus, 
who was lying there with an army to protect the harvest, fell 
back to the town. He set his light troops, well supplied 
with missiles, outside of the ditch, with orders if hard-pressed 
to retire behind it and continue the contest ; and directed 
the workmen of the town to carry out missiles for them, 
and lay them under the wall. He kept the main body of his 
troops within the town, and sent constant reenforcements to 
tiiose without. When the Punic host came near, the drivers 
urged on the elephants against the light troops, whom they 
drove behind the ditch ; but as they still pressed on, showers 
of missiles from the walls and from those at the ditch, killed, 
wounded, and drove furious the elephants; and Metellus, 
taking advantage of the confusion thus caused, led out his 
troops and fell on the flank of the enemy. The defeat was 
decisive ; some were slain, others drowned in attempting to 
swim to a Punic fleet that was at hand ; the whole loss was 
twenty thousand men ; one hundred and four elephants were 
taken, and all the rest killed. After this defeat the Cartha- 
ginians abandoned Selinus, whose inhabitants they removed 
to Lilyba3um, which place and Drepana alone remained in 
their lands. 

An embassy to propose a peace, or at least an exchange 
of prisoners, was now despatched to Rome, and Regulus, 
who had been five years a captive, accompanied it, on his 
promise to return if it proved unsuccessful. The tale of his 
heroism, as transmitted to us by the Roman writers, is one 
of the most famed in Roman story. Unhappily, like so many 
others, it passes the limits of truth. 

Regulus, we are told, refused, as being the slave of the 
Carthaginians, to enter Rome: with their ' consent he at- 
tended the debates of the senate, whom he urged on no 
account to think of peace, or even of an exchange of pris- 
oners ; and, lest regard for him should sway them, he 
affirmed that a slow poison had been given him, and he must 
shortly die. The senate voted as he wished ; and, rejecting 
the embraces of his friends and relatives, as being now dis- 
honored, he returned to his prison. The Carthaginians, in 
their rage at his conduct, resolved to give him the most 
cruel death ; they cut off his eyelids, and exposed him to the 
rays of the sun, enclosed in a cask or chest set full of sharp 
16* X 



186 HISTORY OF ROME. 

spikes, where pain and want of food and sleep terminated 
his existence.* 

Regulus, there can be no doubt, died at Carthage, but 
probably of a natural death. The senate had put the Punic 
generals Bostar and Hamilcar into the hands of his family 
as hostages for his safety ; and, when his wife heard of his 
death, she attributed it to neglect and want of care, and in 
revenge treated her prisoners with such cruelty that Bostar 
died, and Hamilcar would have shared his fate, but that the 
matter came to the ears of the government. The young 
Atilii only escaped capital punishment by throwing all the 
blame on their mother ; the body of Bostar was burnt and 
the ashes sent home to Carthage, and Hamilcar was released 
from his dungeon. f 

After their victory at Panormus the Romans proceeded 
with an array of forty thousand men and a fleet of two hun- 
dred ships to lay siege to the strong town of Lilybaeum. But 
it was gallantly defended by its governor Himiloo, and 
resisted all the efforts of the Romans, aided by the artillery 
with which the Syracusans supplied them, during the re- 
mainder of the war. 

In fact, the remaining nine years of the war (502 — 511) 
were years of almost constant misfortune and disgrace to the 
Romans; and had the Carthaginian system been the same 
as theirs, and the same obstinate perseverance been mani- 
fested, the final advantage would probably have been on the 
side of Carthage. In the beginning of the war the Roman 
generals, for instance, had had a decided superiority ; now 
the case was reversed, and Himilco, Hannibal, and above all 
Hamilcar Barcas (^Lightning \) far excelled those opposed to 
them. 

We will pass over the details of the events of these years, 
only noticing the following, as it relates to the internal his- 

* Cicero against Piso, 19. OfF. iii. 27. Fin. v. 27. Gellius, vii. 24. 
Horace, Carm. iii. 5,41. Appian, Pun. 4. According- to Silius (ii. 343) 
Regulus was crucified. Zonaras, (viii. 15,) following perhaps Dion, 
gives the common account, but speaks dubiously, {cog ?/ 9"/."^; liysi.) 
Perhaps all this testimony is more than outweighed by the significant 
silence of Poly bins, who narrates the war in detail. 

t Diodorus, xxiv. 1. Zonaras as above. If this story be true, the 
preceding one can hardly be so. 

t From the Punic or Hebrew word Barak. Hence perhaps Barak, 
the lieutenant of Deborah, (Judges, ch. iv.) had his name ; the Scipios 
were called fulmina belli. Yilderim (Lightning) was a surname of the 
celebrated Turkish sultan Bayazid. 



DEFEAT OF CLAUDIUS. * 187 

tory of Rome. In the year 503 the consul P. Claudius 
Pulcher sailed with a fleet and army to Sicily, and leaving 
Lilybaeum he went with one hundred and twenty-three ships 
to make an attempt on Drepanum. He hoped to surprise it 
by sailing in the night, but it was daybreak when he arrived, 
and Adherbal, who was there, had time to get his fleet out to 
give him battle. The puUarii told the consul that the sacred 
chickens would not eat ; " if they will not eat," said he, 
"they must drink ;" and he ordered them to be flung into 
the sea.* A battle thus entered into in contempt of the 
religious feelings of the people could not well be prosperous ; 
the Roman fleet was totally defeated ; ninety-three ships with 
all their crews were taken by the enemy ; the consul fled 
with only thirty. Claudius on coming to Rome was ordered 
to name a dictator ; with the usual insolence of his family he 
nominated his client M. Claudius Glicia, the son of a freed- 
man. The senate in indignation deprived the unworthy 
dictator of his office, and appointed A. Atilius Calatinus, 
afterwards named Serranus, [Sower,) because he was found 
by those, who came to inform him of his elevation, solving 
the corn with his own hand in his little plebeian farm.t 
Claudius was prosecuted for violation of the majesty of the 
people, and he did not long survive the disgrace, dying 
probably by his own hand, like so many of his family. 

The Romans were so disheartened by this last defeat that 
for five years they remained without a navy. At length, 
seeing that unless they could prevent supplies from being 
sent to Hamilcar from home, there would be no end to the 
war, they resolved once more to build a fleet. But the 
treasury was exhausted ; public spirit however, as at times 
in Greece, impelled the wealthy citizens to come forward, 
and each giving according to his means, a fleet of two hun- 
dred ships, built after an excellent model, was got ready, 
with which the consul C. Lutatius Catulus and the praetor 
P. Valerius proceeded to Sicily early in the spring of the 
year 511. 

Lutatius, finding that the Punic fleet was gone home, 
blockaded both Lilybseum and Drepanum by sea; and he 
pressed on the siege of this last place with great vigor, 
hoping to take it before the fleet could return. Mean- 
time, aware that he would have to fight at sea, he had his 

"" Cicero de Nat. Deor. ii. 3 ; de Div. i..l6. ii. 8. Liv. Epit. 19. 
+ Pliny, H. N. xviii. 4. Val. Max. iv. 6, 4. 



188 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



crews daily put through their exercise. When it was known 
at Carthage that a Roman fleet was again on the coast of 
Sicily, the ships of war were all got ready for sea, and 
laden with corn and all things requisite for the army of Ha- 
milcar, who was besieging the town of Eryx; and the ad- 
miral, Hanno, was directed to sail thither without delay, 
and, having landed the stores, to take on board some of the 
best troops, and Hamilcar with them, and then to force the 
enemy to an engagement, Hanno accordingly sailed to 
the isles named Agates,* off Cape Lilyb^um, and there 
landed. Lutatius, on learning that the Punic fleet was at 
sea, and judging of its object, took some of the best troops 
on board, intending to give battle in the morning. During 
the night the wind changed; it blew strong, and favorable 
to the enemy, and the sea grew somewhat rough. Th© 
consul was in doubt how to act; but reflecting that if he 
gave batt?le now he should only have to fight Hanno, and 
that too with his ships heavily laden, whereas if he waited 
for fine weather he should have to engage a fleet in fighting 
order with picked troops, and above all with the formidable 
Hamilcar on board, he resolved to hesitate no longer. He 
advanced in line of battle ; the heavy ships and raw levies 
of the Carthaginians could ill resist the expedite quinque- 
remes and seasoned troops of the Romans, and the issue of 
the contest was not long dubious : fifty Punic ships were 
sunk, seventy taken ; the number of the prisoners amounted 
to ten thousand. 

This defeat quite broke the spirit of the Carthaginians, 
Having vented their rage as usual on their unfortunate 
admiral by crucifying him, they gave full powers to Ha- 
milcar to treat of peace with the Roman consul, who, aware 
of the exhausted condition of Rome, gladly hearkened to 
the overtures of the Punic general, and peace was concluded 
on the following terms, subject to the approbation of the 
Roman people. The Carthaginians were to evacuate all 
Sicily, and not to make war on Hiero or his allies; they 
were to release all the Roman prisoners without ransom; 
and to pay the Romans the sum of 2200 Euboic talents in 
the course of twenty years. The people, thinking these 
terms too favorable to Carthage, sent out ten commission- 
ers to Sicily, and by these the sum to be paid was increased 

* Liv. Epit. 19. Polybius speaks of but one isle, and names it 
^g6sa. 



PEACE WITH CARTHAGE. 189 

a thousand talents, and the terms reduced to ten years, and 
the Carthaginians were obliged to evacuate the islands be- 
tween Italy and Sicily, and forbidden to send any ship of 
war off' the coast of the territory of Rome or her allies, or 
to enlist troops in Italy. 

Thus, after a duration of twenty-four years, terminated 
the first war between Rome and Carthage. The efforts 
and the sacrifices made by the former state were greater 
than at any period of her history. The Roman population 
was reduced by half a million in the contest; the Italian 
allies must have diminished in proportion : seven hundred 
ships of war were lost ; the enormous property taxes which 
they had to pay oppressed the people beyond measure ; 
large portions of the domain were sold, and this, with the 
sale of small properties in land, caused by distress, gave 
origin to the great inequality of property which afterwards 
proved so pernicious to the state. On the side of Carthage, 
the war was little less injurious. It is true she did not, 
like Rome, lavish the blood of her own citizens, but she ' 
had to pay her mercenaries high, and for this purpose to 
increase the taxes of her subjects, and thereby augment 
their discontent ; all the imposts were doubled, and the 
land-tax was raised to one half of the produce.* 

The peace left Rome mistress of Sicily ; and so exhausted 
was the island by the war, that the purchase seemed hardly 
worth the cost. The occasion of the war was evidently 
unjust on the side of Rome ; and it would appear that 
her wiser policy had been to confine herself to Italy ; but 
in n-eality the choice was not in her power, for Carthage 
was now extending her dominion over the West, and the 
contest for empire or existence must have come sooner or 
later. We must also bear in mind, that the empire of the 
world had been destined by Providence for Rome. 

Sicily being the first country acquired out of Italy, it was 
the first example of a Roman province.^ A governor was 
sent to it annually ; all war was prohibited among its people ; 
excise, land-tax, and other taxes were paid to Rome; but no 
public lands were retained there, and no assignments made 
to Roman citizens. 

Hiero continued to the end of a long life to rule his little 

* Carthage lost 500 ships in the war. 

t Provincla Niebuhr regards as equivalent with proventus, and paral- 
lel to vectio-al. 



190 HISTORY OF ROME. 

realm of Syracuse as the favored ally of Rome : and his 
wisdom, justice, and beneficence caused the Syracusans to 
enjoy more real happiness than they had done at any period 
of their history.* 



CHAPTER Il.f 

CIVIL WAR AT CARTHAGE. ILLYRIAN WAR. GALLIC WARS 

Scarcely had the Carthaginians concluded the war with 
Rome when they were engaged in another which menaced 
their very existence. The mercenaries who had served in 
Sicily, enraged at their pay and the rewards which Hamil- 
car had promised them being withheld, turned their arms 
against the state. They laid siege to Carthage, Hippo, and 
Utica. Most of the subjects, exacerbated by the enormous 
imposts which had been laid on them, joined them, and they 
defeated the only army that Carthage could assemble. At 
length the conduct of the war was committed to Hamilcar, 
and by his able measures he succeeded in annihilating the 
revolters. The war, one of the most sanguinary and fero- 
cious ever known, lasted three years and four months. It 
gave the world an example of the danger of having the army 
of a state entirely composed of mercenaries. 

During this war the Romans acted with honor : they 
set the Punic prisoners who were in Italy at liberty ; they 
allowed provisions to be sent to Carthage, but not to the 
quarters of the rebels; and when the troops in Sardinia, who 
had also revolted, applied to them for aid they refused it. 
They could not, however, persist in this honorable course : 
on a second application from these troops, who were hard 
pressed by the native Sards, they sent a force thither ; and 
when the Carthaginians were preparing to assert their do- 
minion over the island, they were menaced with a war with 
Rome. They were therefore obliged to give up all claim 
to Sardinia, and even to pay an additional sum of 1200 

* We here lose the invaluable guidance of Niebuhr, whose work 
terminates at this point. 

t Polybius, i. 65 to the end, ii. 1 — 35. 



ILLYRIAN WAR. 191 

talents, as compensation for injuries they were alleged to 
have done the Roman merchant shipping. This flagrant 
injustice on the part of the Romans rankled in the mind of 
the Carthaginians, and it is assigned as the chief cause of the 
second Punic war, which inflicted so much misery on Italy. 

For several years now the Romans were engaged in re- 
ducing the barbarous natives of Sardinia and Corsica, and 
in extending their dominion northwards in Italy. It was 
also at this time that they first began to turn their views 
over the Adriatic, and regard the state of Greece. The fol- 
lowinor was the first occasion. 

C3 

The Illyrians had for a long time been united under one 
head, and had exercised robbery and piracy on a large 
scale by sea and by land. Their last king, Agron,* dying 
from intemperance caused by his joy at his subjects having 
taken and plundered the wealthy town of Phcenice in Epirus, 
his widow Teuta assumed the government as guardian to 
her infant son. Piracy was now carried to a greater extent 
than ever, and continual complaints came to the Roman sen- 
ate from their subjects on the east coast of Italy. C. and L. 
Coruncanius were therefore sent (522) as ambassadors to 
Teuta : she treated them with great haughtiness, and the 
younger of the envoys told her that, with the help of God, 
the Romans would make her amend the royal authority in 
Illyria. They departed ; and the queen, offended at his free- 
dom of speech, sent some persons after him who murdered 
him. This breach of the law of nations was followed by 
a declaration of war by the Romans. 

The following spring (523) the consul Cn. Fulvius sailed 
from Rome with two hundred ships, while his colleague 
L. Postumius led a land army of 20,000 foot. and 2000 horse 
to Brundisium. Fulvius directed his course to the isle of 
Corcyra, of which the Illyrians were now masters ; buj 
Demetrius of Pharus,t who commanded there, having in- 
curred the wrath of Teuta, had sent, offering to put it into 
the hands of the Romans. He kept his word, and the Cor- 
cyraeans gladly submitted to the Roman dominion. Fulvius 
then passed over to Apollonia, where he was joined by 
Postumius. This city also put itself under the protection of 
R-orae, and Epidamnus or Dyrrachium, whither they next 

^ Agron was great-grandson of Bardylis, who fell in battle against 
Philip of Macedonia. (History of Greece, Part III. c. 1.) 
t This was an island on the coast of Illyria. 



192 HISTORY OF ROME. 

proceeded, did the same. The consuls then entered Illyria, 
where several tribes revolted from Teuta ; and, leaving 
Demetrius to rule over them, Fulvius returned to Rome, 
while Postumius wintered at Epidamnus. In the spring 
(524) Teuta obtained peace, on condition of paying tribute, 
giving up all claim to the greater part of Illyria, and enga- 
ging not to sail from her port of Lissus with more than two 
barks, and these unarmed.* Postumius sent to inform the 
JEtolian and Achaean leagues of this peace. Embassies 
were soon after despatched to Athens and Corinth, and a 
this last place the Romans were allowed to join in the Isth 
mi an games. 

In the year 514 a war had commenced with the Boian 
Gauls, supported by some of their kindred tribes and by the 
Ligurians. It was continued through the following year, 
with advantage on the side of the Romans. In 516 a large 
body of Transalpine Gauls came to the aid of the Boians; 
but at Ariminura they fell out among themselves, killed their 
kings, and slaughtered one another. The survivors returned 
home, and the Boians and Ligurians were glad to obtain 
peace. The following year the temple of Janus at Rome, 
which was to be closed in time of peace, was shut, for the 
first time, it is said, since the reign of Numa. 

Four years after this peace (520) the tribune C. Flaminius 
brought in a bill to assign the Picentine district, which had 
been occupied by the Senonian Gauls, and which they still 
held as tenants to the state. The Boians and other neigh- 
boring tribes saw in this a plan of the Romans to deprive 
them all gradually of their lands, and they determined on 
resistance. The Boians and Isumbrians sent to invite the 
GoBsatans, who dwelt on the Rhone, to come and share in a 
war in which great plunder was expected. The invitation 
was readily accepted; and in the eighth year after the divis- 
ion of the Picentine land, (527,) the Gsesatans crossed the 
Alps and descended into the plain of the Po, where they 
were joined by all the Gallic tribes except the Venetians and 
the Cenomanians, whom the Romans had gained over to 
their side. With a host of 50,000 foot and 20,000 horse 
and chariots they then crossed the Apennines and entered 
Etruria. 

" Th(^ Romans afterwards (533) made war on Demetrius for breach 
of this treaty, and he had to seek refuge with Phihp II. of Macedonia, 
in whose service he spent the remainder of his hfe. 



GALLIC WARS.' 193 

The terror caused at Rome by this irruption of the Gauls 
w as great. All Italy shared in it, and prepared to resist the 
invaders. The number of men actually under arms on this 
occasion was 150,000 foot and 6000 horse, and the total 
amount of the fighting men of Rome and her allies (the 
Greeks and Etruscans not included) was 700,000 foot and 
70,000 horse. 

One of the consuls, C. Atilius, was at this time in Sar- 
dinia ; his colleague, L. ^milius, had encamped at Ari- 
minum ; one of the prsetors commanded an army in Etruria. 
The Gauls had reached Clusium, in their way to Rome, 
when they learned that the praetor's army was in their rear. 
They returned, and by a stratagem gave this army a defeat : 
six thousand Romans were slain ; the rest retired to a hill, 
where they defended themselves. The consul JEmilius, who 
had entered Etruria, now came up ; and the Gauls, in order 
to secure the immense booty which they had acquired, by the 
advice of one of their kings declined an action, resolving 
to return home along the coast, and then to reenter Etruria, 
light and unencumbered. JEmilius, being joined by the re- 
mainder of the praetor's army, followed their march, in order 
to harass them as much as possible. Meantime Atilius had 
landed his army at Pisa, and was marching for Rome. His 
advanced guard met that of the Gauls, and defeated it. A 
general action soon commenced, the Gauls being attacked 
in front and rear : they fought with skill and desperation ; 
but their swords and shields were inferior to those of the 
Romans, and they were utterly defeated, with the loss of 
40,000 slain and 10,000 taken ; that of the Romans is not 
known. Atilius fell in the action. JGmilius, having made 
a brief inroad into the Boian country, returned to Rome and 
triumphed. 

The consuls of the succeeding year (528) reduced the 
Boians to submission. Heavy rains and an epidemic in their 
army checked all further operations. Their successors, P. 
Furius and C. Flaminius, (the author of the war,) carried the 
war beyond the Po, and ravaged the lands of the Isumbrians, 
who having assembled a. force of fifty thousand men pre- 
pared to give them battle. The Roman consuls, who were 
devoid of al military skill, fearing to trust their Gallic allies, 
placed them on the south side of the Po, the bridges over 
which they broke down, and drew up their troops so close 
to its ed^^e as to leave no space for the requisite movements, 
K> that their onlv hi^pes of safety lay in victory. Fortunately 

l'7 Y 



194 • HISTORY OF ROME. 

for the Roman army the tribunes possessed the skill the 
consuls wanted. Knowing that the long Gallic broadswords 
6ent after the first blow, and must be laid under the foot 
and straightened to be again of use, they gave pila to their 
front ranks, and directed them, when the Gauls had bent 
their swords on these, to fall on sword in hand. These 
tactics succeeded completely ; the straight, short thrust- 
swords of the Romans did certain execution, and their vic- 
tory was decisive. 

After this defeat the Gauls sent an embassy to Rome 
suing for peace ; but the new consuls, M. Claudius Mar- 
cellus and Cn. Cornelius Scipio, (530,) fearing to lose an 
occasion of distinguishing themselves, prevented its being 
granted. The Isumbrians hired thirty-three thousand 
Geesatans ; but all their efforts were unavailing ; they were 
everywhere defeated, their chief towns Acerrse and Medio- 
lanum (Milan) were taken, and shortly afterwards the colo- 
nies of Mutina, (Modena,) Cremona, and Placentia founded, 
to keep them in obedience. Marcellus at his triumph bore 
on a trophy the arms of the Gallic king Viridomarus, whom 
he had slain with his own hand, and suspended them, as the 
third Spolia opima* to Jupiter Feretrius, on the Capitol. 

The Roman dominion now extended over the whole of 
Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Illyria, and Corcyra, and 
the towns of the coast of Epirus. 



CHAPTER m.t 

CONQUESTS OF THE CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN. TAKING OP 

SAGUNTUM. MARCH OF HANNIBAL FOR ITALY. HANNI- 

BAl's passage of the alps. BATTLE OF THE TICINUS. 

BATTLE OF THE TREBIA. BATTLE OF THE TRASIMENE 

LAKE. HANNIBAL AND FABIUS CUNCTATOR. BATTLE OF 

CANN^. PROGRESS OF HANNIBAL. 

While the Romans were thus extending their dominion 
in Cisalpine Gaul, the Carthaginians were equally active in 

* Plut. Marcellus, 7. The other two are the fictitious ones of Romu- 
lus, the real of Cossus. See above, p. 104. 

t For the second Punic war we have the third decad of Livj, who 



CONQUESTS OF THE CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN. 195 

forming an empire in Spain. The loss of Sicily and Sar- 
dinia, and the heavy sum of money exacted from them by 
the Romans, had increased their enmity to them ; and Ha- 
milcar, conscious of his great talents, and that by the fault 
of others he had been obliged to give up his hopes of re- 
covering Sicily, and filled with hatred to the Roman name, 
burned to possess the means of waging war with them once 
more. The possession of Spain he saw would give abun- 
dance of men and money, and the divided state of the nations 
and tribes who held it would make the acquisition of do- 
minion easy. As soon, therefore, as the civil war was ended, 
and the Numidians who had shared in it were reduced, he 
embarked his army, (514,) and landed at Gades, (Cadiz.) He 
was attended by his son-in-law Hasdrubal and his son Han- 
nibal, then a child of nine years of age. As he was offering 
sacrifice previous to embarkation, he made those who were 
present withdraw a little ; then leading his son up to the 
altar, he asked him if he would go with him; and on his 
giving a cheerful assent, he made him lay his hand on the 
flesh of the victim, and swear eternal enmity to Rome. 

During nine years Hamilcar carried on a successful war 
in Spain. He reduced the modern Andalusia and Estra- 
madura, and penetrated into Portugal and Leon. Hamilcar 
fell (523) in an engagement with the people of the country. 
The army chose Hasdrubal to succeed him, and the Cartha- 
ginian senate confirmed their choice, and sent him addir 
tional troops. Hasdrubal, by his talents, his mildness, jus- 
tice, and good policy, won the affections of the Spaniards, 
and extended the dominion of Carthage to the river Iberus, 
(Ebro;) and he founded on the coast the city of New Car- 
thage (Carthagena) for the capital, which soon nearly rival- 
led Carthage itself in extent and wealth. This able general 
perished by the hand of an assassin in the eighth year of his 
command, (531,) and the army, as before, assuming the 
right of appointment, set Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar, who 
had been second in command to Hasdrubal, in his place, and 
their choice was confirmed by the government. 

Hannibal, who was now twenty-five years of age, felt that 
the time for executing his father's projects against Rome 
was at hand. He proposed to march a veteran army into 
Italy, and lie hoped that one or more decisive victories there 

followed Polybius ; also this last writer's own narrative to the battle of 
Cannae consecutively; and, for the conclusion, Appian's Punica and 
Hannibalian War; Plutarch's lives of Marcellus and Fabius Maximus. 



196 HISTORY OF ROME. 

would induce the Samnites and other Italian peoples to rise 
and assert their independence. In order to extend the Punic 
dominion still further in Spain, to enrich his troops, and to 
give them confidence in themselves and their general, he led 
them into the country of the Olcades, on the Anas, (Guadi- 
ana,) and took their chief town, named Althaea or Carteia. 
The following spring (532) he entered the. country of the 
Vaccaeans, and took their towns of Elmantica or Herman- 
dica, and Arbucala ; and as he was on the way back to New 
Carthage, he defeated on the banks of the Tagus an army 
of more than one hundred thousand Spaniards who came to 
oppose him. The whole of Spain south of the Ebro, with ' 
the exception of the city of Saguntum, now obeyed the 
power of Carthage. The people of this town, who claimed 
a Greek origin, and the other Greek towns on the coast of 
Spain, had put themselves under the protection of Rome, and 
a Roman embassy was sent to Carthage, in the time of Has- 
drubal, to stipulate for their independence, and to require 
that the Punic power should not be extended beyond the 
Ebro. The Saguntines, aware of the ultimate designs of 
Hannibal, sent pressing embassies to Rome, praying for aid, 
as Hannibal, having caused a quarrel between them and 
the Torboletans, menaced their existence. An embassy was 
therefore sent to Hannibal, who gave a haughty, evasive 
reply, and sending to Carthage for instructions, he received 
power to act as he deemed best. Under the pretext of 
aiding the Torboletans, he therefore came and laid siege to 
Saguntum with an army of 150,000 men. The conquest 
of this town was an object of the utmost importance in his 
eyes; he would thus deprive the Romans of the place of 
arms which they had in view for carrying on the war in 
Spain ; he would strike the Spaniards with a salutary dread 
of the Punic power, and leave no enemy of importance in 
his rear on his proposed way for Italy : and he would acquire 
vast wealth for the prosecution of the war. 

During eight months the Saguntines made a most heroic 
resistance. Their applications to Rome for aid were vain, 
as they produced nothing but fruitless embassies to Hanni- 
bal and to Carthage. At length the town was stormed, all 
within it slaughtered or enslaved, and the immense booty 
sent to Carthage or reserved for the war. The Romans, 
when they heard of the capture of Saguntum, issued a dec- 
laration of war unless Hannibal was given up to them, and 
sent an embassy for this purpose to Carthage. The chief 



MARCH OF HANNIBAL FOR ITALY. 197 

of the embassy, Q,. Fabius Maximus, simply stated the de- 
mands of Rome ; the Carthaginian senate hesitated, not 
willing to surrender Hannibal, and as little inclined to say 
that he had acted by public authority. Fabius then, holding 
up his toga, said, " In this I bear peace or war, take which 
ye will." " Give which you please," replied the Suffes. 
*' War, then," cried he, shaking it out. *' We receive it," 
was shouted forth on all sides. The embassy returned to 
Rome, whence the consul Tib. Sempronius was already 
gone to Sicily, with 160 ships and 26,000 men, in order to 
pass over to Africa, while his colleague P. Cornelius Scipio 
had sailed for Spain with sixty quinqueremes and 24,000 
men, and the praetor L. Manlius commanded a third army 
of about 20,000 men in Cisalpine Gaul. 

During the winter Hannibal made all the requisite ar- 
rangements for the defence of Africa and Spain, and he 
formed treaties with the Gauls on both sides of the Alps. In 
the beginning of the spring (534) he assembled his army of 
90,000 foot, ' 12,000 horse, and 37 elephants, at New Car- 
thage, and committing the government of Spain to his 
brother Hasdrubal, and leaving him a force of about 15,000 
men and fifty-seven ships of war, he crossed the Ebro on 
his way for Italy. In his progress thence to the Pyrenees 
he overcame the various peoples of the country, in which he 
left Hanno with 10,000 foot and 1000 horse. Desertion 
and other causes reduced his army, but at the foot of the 
Pyrenees it numbered 50,000 foot and 9000 horse, all 
steady and well-disciplined soldiers. Having passed these 
mountains, he marched without delay for the Rhodanus, 
(Rhone,) on the further bank of which he found a large 
army of Gauls assembled to dispute his passage.* He col- 
lected, and had constructed, a great number of boats and 
rafts, but it seemed too hazardous to attempt to pass a broad, 
rapid river in the presence of so large an army. He there- 
fore sent at nightfall a division of his troops under Hanno 
up the river, with directions to cross it a day's march off, 
and then to come down the left bank and take the enemy 
in the rear. Hanno did as directed, and having halted a 
day on the other side to refresh his men, marched down the 
stream. When he made the fire signal agreed on, Hannibal, 
who had every thing ready, commenced the passage. The 
Gauls rushed down to oppose him ; but they soon saw the 



17 



Opposite Beauvaise. 



198 HISTOBY OF ROME. 

camp behind them in flames, and after a short resistance 
turned and fled. The remainder of the Punic army then 
passed over.* 

Meantime Scipio, having coasted Etruria and Liguria, on 
his way to Spain, was encamped at the mouth of the Rhone, 
four days' march from the place where Hannibal was lying. 
He sent forward a party of horse to reconnoitre, who fell 
in with and drove back five hundred Numidian horse sent 
out by Hannibal for the same purpose. When they returned, 
and told the consul where the Punic army was, he embarked 
his troops, and sailed up the river to attack them ; but on 
coming to the place he found them gone. He then returned 
with all speed, and sending his brother Cn. Scipio to Spain 
with the greater part of his forces, embarked for Pisa with 
the remainder to meet the foe on his descent from the Alps. 

Hannibal, urged by an embassy from the Boian Gauls, 
had resolved to lose no time in advancing into Italy. He 
marched four days up the left bank of the Rhone, to its 
junction with the Isara, (Isere.t) The country between 
these rivers was named the Island, and two brothers were at 
this time contending for the regal authority over it. Hanni- 
bal sided with the elder, who in return supplied him with 
clothing and provisions for his army, now 38,000 foot and 
8000 horse, and gave him an escort through the country of 
the Allobroges to the foot of the Alps. 

Hannibal went for ten days about one hundred miles up 
the Isara ; | he then turned to the mountains. But here 
difficulties began to assail him. The Gauls occupied the 
passes, but as they did not keep their plans secret, he learned 
that they were there; and also finding out they only -kept 
guard by day, retiring to their town by night, he. set out in 
the night with some select troops and seized the heights 
they used to occupy. In the morning the army set forward ; 

* He adopted the following plan to get the elephants over the river. 
Broad rafts were attached to the bank, and other rafts to these on the 
outside, and the whole covered with earth ; the elephants readily went 
on this, two females being placed at their head. The outer rafts were 
then loosed, and towed over by boats, the elephants in general remain- 
ing quiet on them ; some however jumped into the river, but they ~ 
were saved. (Polyb. iii. 46.) 

t Polybius calls the other river the Scoras or Scaras ; Livy the Arar, 
(Saone,) but the confluence of the Rhone and Saone is too far off, and 
the land between them does not agree with Polybius' description of the 
Island. 

t To Montmelian and Bourgneuf. 



Hannibal's passage of the alps. 199 

but the Gauls assailed them in the pass, where they had to 
proceed along a narrow path over a deep ravine, and did 
much mischief, especially to the horses and beasts of burden. 
Hannibal, however, at the head of his select troops, drove 
them off. He then took and plundered several villages and 
their chief town. The march now lay for three days in a 
fruitful valley, where there were numerous herds of cattle. 
On the fourth day the people who dwelt at the other end 
of the valley sent to propose a peace with him, offering host- 
ages and guides. Hannibal, though he distrusted them, 
agreed to the treaty, but he prudently remitted none of his 
precautions. After two days' march the troops entered a 
rugged, precipitous pass leading out of the valley, and here 
the Gauls had made preparations to overwhelm them. But 
Hannibal had wisely put the baggage, and horse, and ele- 
phants in advance, and kept his troops of the linfe in the 
rear, which foresight saved the army. The loss, however, 
in men and beasts was considerable, as the Gauls showered 
stones and rolled down rocks from the heights above them. 
Hannibal was obliged to pass the night separate from his 
cavalry. In the morning, finding the Gauls gone, the army 
joined and moved on, though still harassed by their desul- 
tory attacks. It was remarked that they never assailed the 
part of the line of march where the elephants were, as 
the unusual appearance of these animals inspired them with 
terror. 

On the ninth day the army reached the summit of the 
Alps. Here they made a halt of two days to rest, and to 
enable those who had been left behind to rejoin. The snow 
which now fell, it being late in the autumn, and the prospect 
of the further difficulties they would have to encounter, dis- 
pirited the troops ; but their leader, by pointing out to them 
the rich plain of the Po, and assuring them of the facility 
of conquest, soon raised their spirits, and they commenced 
the descent. Here however, thoucrh there were no enemies 
to attack them, the loss was nearly as great as in the ascent. 
The new-fallen snow made the path indiscernible, and those 
who missed it rolled down the precipices. They still how- 
ever advanced, till they found themselves on the edge of a 
steep, which it was plain the elephants and beasts of burden 
could never get down. Hannibal tried to take a round to 
escape this steep ; but the thin crust of ice which had formed 
on the snow gave way under the feet of the beasts, and held 
them impounded, and even the men could not get along it. 



200 HISTORY OF ROME. 

He therefore cleared away the snow on the edge of the steep, 
and encamped there for the night. Next day he set his men 
at work to level a way down ; * and they made it that day 
passable for the horses and mules, which they brought down 
to the parts where there was pasturage ; but it took tifree days 
to make a way for the elephants. The descent now offered 
no further difficulties, and the army was soon encamped in the 
country of the Isumbrian Gauls.t 

Five months had now elapsed from the day they had set 
out from New Carthage, fifteen days of which had been oc- 
cupied in the passage of the Alps The army had in that 
time been considerably reduced by its various losses, and it 
now numbered but 26,000 men, i. e. 12,000 African and 
8000 Spanish foot, and 6000 horse. 

Having given his army sufficient rest, Hannibal advanced 
into the country of the Ligurian tribe of the Taurini, (Pied- 
mont,) whose capital he took by storm. This struck terror 
into the surrounding tribes, and they all joined the invaders. 
Hannibal, finding that those in the plains were only withheld 
from doing the same by their fear of the Roman armies in 
their country, resolved to advance at once, and deliver them 
from their apprehensions. 

Scipio had meantime advanced from Pisa, and collecting 
what troops there were in Etruria and Cisalpine Gaul, crossed 
the Po with the intention of giving Hannibal battle at once. 
The Punic general was equally anxious to fight ; both armies 
approached the river Ticinus, (Tessino,) which the Romans 
crossed, and came to within five miles of Victumviee, (Vige- 
vano?) where Hannibal lay. Next morning Scipio went out 
to reconnoitre with his horse and light troops ; Hannibal did 
the same, and the two parties met. An action ensued : the 
consul put his light troops and the Gallic horse in front, sup- 
ported by the heavy horse ; Hannibal set his bridled horse | 

* According to Livy, Appian, and others, Hannibal, in order to be 
able to cut down the rocks, had large trees hewn into pieces, and piled 
around them, and set fire to, and, when the rocks were glowing hot, 
vinegar poured on them, which rendered them soft and easy to cut. 
The truth of this circumstance (which is unnoticed by Polybius^ has 
been disputed in modern times. 

t Some critics make Hannibal come over the Great, others over the 
Little St. Bernard; some are for Mt. Genevre, the Simplon, or Mt. 
Viso ; others, (who we incline to think are right,) for Mt. Cenis. 
According to these last, his route was Montmelian, Maltaverne, Aigue- 
belle, La Chapelle, St. Jean de Maurienne, St. Michel, Modane, 
Verney, Lans-le-Bourg, Summit of Cenis, La Novalese, Suse, St. 
Ambroise, Rivoli. 

t The Numidians did not use bridles. 



BATTLE OF THE TREBIA. 201 

in the centre, the Numidians on the flanks. At the first 
shock the Roman light troops gave way and fled ; the heavy 
horse maintained the conflict till the Numidians fell on their 
rear. Scipio himself received a severe wound, and is said 
to have been indebted for his life to his son, afterwards so 
famous, then a youth of seventeen. The Romans dispersed 
and fled to their camp ; and Scipio, now aware of the enemy's 
great superiority in cavalry, resolved to retire Without delay 
beyond the Po, where the country was less level. He reached 
this river, and got over before the Carthaginians came up, 
and he also had time to loosen the bridcre of rafts. About 
six hundred men who remained on the other side fell into 
their hands : the rest of the army reached Placentia in safety. 
Hannibal went two days' march up the river, and passed it in 
a narrower place by a bridge of boats ; he then came to 
within six miles of Placentia, and offered battle, but to no 
purpose. The Gauls now readily joined him ; and a body 
of 2000 Gallic foot and 200 horse, who were in the Roman 
service, cut to pieces the guard at one of the gates, and came 
over to him. Scipio, thinking his position no longer safe, 
led his troops out in the night, in order to occupy a stronger 
one on the hills about the river Trebia, where he might wait 
for the arrival of his colleague, who had been recalled from 
Sicily. When Hannibal found Scipio gone, he sent the Nu- 
midians after him ; but they fell to rummaging the deserted 
camp for plunder, and the Romans got safely over the river, 
and encamped. Hannibal then came and sat down about 
five miles off, where the Gauls supplied him with abundance 
of provisions. 

Sempronius, on receiving his recall, embarked his troops, 
and sailed up the Adriatic to Ariminum, where he landed, 
and lost no time in joining Scipio on the Trebia. The con- 
suls differed in opinion : Scipio, who was still disabled by 
his wound, was for delay, which must be injurious to the 
enemy, and would probably cause the fickle Gauls to change 
their minds; besides which he himself when recovered might 
be of some service to his country : Sempronius was for im- 
mediate action, as the time of elections was at hand, and 
moreover the illness of his colleague would afford him the 
occasion of gaining the sole glory of victory. An occasion 
of action soon presented itself. 

The Gauls who dwelt from the Trebia to the Po, wishing 
to keep well with both parties, declared openly for neither. 
Hannibal, to punish them, sent a body of 2000 foot and 1000 

z 



202 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Numidian horse to plunder their lands. They came to the 
Roman camp imploring protection, and Sempronius sent out 
some horse and light troops, who drove off those of the 
enemy. Elate with this success, he became still more anxious 
for battle, and Hannibal, who wished for an engagement for 
the very same reasons that Scipio was opposed to it, prepared 
to take advantage of Sempronius' ardor. Having observed 
in the plain between the two armies a stream whose banks 
were overgrown by bushes and briers, he placed in ambush 
in it during the night his brother Mago with 1000 foot and 
as many horse, and in the morning he sent the Numidian 
horse over the Trebia to ride up to the enemy's camp and 
try to draw them out ; he meantime ordered the rest of the 
army to take their breakfast, and get themselves and their 
horses ready, 

Sempronius, when he saw the Numidians, sent his horse to 
drive them off; his light troops followed, and he then led out 
the rest of the army. It was now midwinter, the day was 
bitterly cold and snowy, and the troops had not had their 
breakfast ; the Trebia was swollen by the rain that had fallen, 
and it was breast high on the infantry as they waded through 
it. ■ Cold and hungry, they advanced to engage an army that 
was fresh and vigorous, for Hannibal had directed his men to 
anoint and arm themselves by the fire in their tents. When 
he saw the Romans over the river, he led out his troops, and 
drew them up about a mile from his camp. His advance 
-guard consisted of 8000 dartmen and Balearic slingers; he 
drew up his heavy infantry, Africans, Spaniards, and Gauls, 
about 20,000 in one line, with 10,000 horse, one half on 
each wing, and the elephants in front of the wings. Sem- 
pronius drew up his army of 16,000 Romans and 20,000 
allies in the usual manner : he placed his horse (about 4000) 
on the wings. The Roman light troops being already fa- 
tigued, and having spent their weapons in the pursuit of the 
Numidians, were easily beaten; and while the troops of the 
line were eno-aored, the Punic horse charged and scattered 
that of the Romans ; the light troops and Numidians then 
advanced and fell on the flanks of the Roman line; the 
troops in ambush rose at the same time, and attacked them 
in the rear. The Roman wings, assailed in front by the 
elephants and in flank by the light troops, gave way and fled ; 
the centre, about ten thousand men, drove back the Punic 
troops in front of it, but it suffered from those in its rear. 
At length, seeing their wings driven off the field, and fearing 



HANNIBAL ENTERS ETRURIA. 203 

the number of the enemy's horse if they attempted to aid 
them, or to recross the river to their camp, they made a 
desperate effort, and breaking through the adverse line forced 
their way to Placentia. Most of the remainder were de- 
stroyed at the river by the horse and the elephants ; those 
who escaped made their way to Placentia. The victors did 
not venture to cross the river : all their elephants but one 
died in consef|uence of the extreme cold and wet. Scipio 
the next night led the troops in the camp over the Trebia to 
Placentia, and thence to Cremona. 

Sempronius sent word to Rome that but for the weather 
he should have obtained a complete victory. The truth, 
however, was not to be concealed ; but the Roman spirit only 
rose the more in adversity. Cn. Servilius and C. Flaminius * 
were created consuls, Sempronius having gone to Rome to 
hold the elections. 

Hannibal, having made an ineffectual attempt on a maga- 
zine near Placentia, and taken Victumviae, gave his troops 
some repose. Early in the spring (535) he attempted to 
cross the Apennines ; but a violent storm of thunder, hail, 
wind and rain, forced him to give over his project. He then 
gave Sempronius a second defeat near Placentia, after which 
he led his troops into Liguria. Flaminius went to his prov- 
ince in the spring, and having received four legions, two 
from Sempronius and two from the praetor Atilius, crossed 
the Apennines and encamped at Arretium, (Arezzo.) Hanni- 
bal, finding the Gauls so discontented at his remaining in their 
country that he was obliged to change his dress frequently, 
and to wear various wigs in order to escape their attempts on 
his life, resolved to enter Etruria without delay. Of the 
various routes into that country he fixed on that through the 
marshes formed by the river Arno,f as he could thus elude 
the Roman consul. He placed his African and Spanish in- 
fantry with the baggage in advance ; these were followed by 
the Gauls, and last came the horse. He himself rode on his 
only remaining elephant. For four days and three nights 
they had to march through the water, enduring every kind 
of hardship. Most of the beasts of burden perished, several 
of the horses lost their hoofs, and Hannibal himself lost the 
sight of one of his eyes. 

* This was the Flaminius who had caused the Gallic war. See 
above, p. 192. 

t Livy, xxii. 2. They were on the right bank of the Lower Arno. 
(Nieb. i. 128.) Micali and some other moderns maintain that they were 
the marshes formed by the Upper Po. 



204 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Having learned the character of the Roman consul, a vain, 
rash man, utterly unskilled in military affairs, Hannibal re- 
solved to provoke him to a battle before the arrival of his col- 
league. He therefore proceeded to lay waste the fruitful 
country between Feesulse and Arretium. The sight of the 
devastations he committed enraged Flaminius, and he would 
not be withheld by his officers from giving battle. Hannibal 
had now reached the vicinity of Cortona, and jvhen he found 
that Flaminius was following him, he prepared to select the 
most advantageous position for engaging. He therefore ad- 
vanced, with the hills of Cortona on his left, the Trasimene 
lake on his right, till he came to' a spot where the hills 
approach the lake, leaving a narrow path, and then recede, 
forming a valley closed at the end by an eminence. He 
stationed his line-troops at the further end of this valley, 
placing his light troops on the hills on the right side of it, 
and his horse and the Gauls on those on the left. He thus 
awaited Flaminius, who arriving in the evening, encamped 
on the lake without the pass, into which he led his troops 
early the next morning. A dense fog happening to rise and 
spread over the valley concealed the enemy from the view 
of the Romans ; the head of their column had just reached 
the place v/here the Punic troops awaited them, when Han- 
nibal gave the signal for attack, and they were assailed at 
once in front and flank. Not having time to form, they were 
cut down in their line of march. Flaminius himself was 
killed by the Gauls early in the action. Numbers ran up to 
their necks in the water ; but the enemy's horse charged 
after them and cut them to pieces.* The number of the 
slain was 15000 ; a body of 6000 broke through in front, and 
made their way over the hills to a neighboring village, 
whither they were pursued by Maharbal. and forced to sur- 
render, on promise of being allowed to depart without their 
arms ; but Hannibal, denying the right of Maharbal to grant 
these terms, assembled all his prisoners, to the number of 
upwards of 15,000, and separating the Romans, whom he re- 
tained, he dismissed the allies, declaring, as was his wont, 
that he was come as the deliverer of Italy from Roman 
tyranny. His own loss was about fifteen hundred men, 

* According to Livy (xxil. 5) and Zonaras (viii. 125,) the ardor of 
the combatants was such that they did not perceive the shock of an 
earthquake which occurred at that time, and threw down large portions 
of several towns, sank mountains, and turned rivers from their course. 
Of this Polybius says nothing. 



HANNIBAL AND FABIUS CUNCTATOR. 205 

chiefly Gauls, on whom he generally contrived to make the 
loss fail most heavily. 

This defeat was of too great a magnitude for the govern- 
ment at Rome to be able to conceal or extenuate it. In the 
evening of the day the news arrived, the prastor mounted the 
Rostra and said aloud, " We have been overcome in a great 
battle," The people, unused to tidings of defeat, were quite 
overwhelmed ; but the senate remained calm and resolute 
as ever in adversity. Soon after, another piece of ill news 
arrived; a body of four thousand horse, which the consul 
Servilius had sent on from Ariminum, were cut to pieces or 
forced to surrender by the Punic horse and light troops. It 
was now resolved to revive the dictatorship, an office for some 
time out of use, and Q,. Fabius Maximus was appointed,* 
with M. Minucius for his master of the horse. 

Hannibal marched through Umbria and Picenum, wasting 
and destroying the country on his way. On reaching the 
sea he sent home word of his successes ; and having halted 
some time, to give his men and horses rest, he advanced 
through the country of the Marsian League into Apulia. 
The dictator, having received the two legions of the consul 
Servilius, and added two newly raised ones to them, ad- 
vanced with all speed to Apulia, and encamped in presence 
of Hannibal near Arpi. The Punic general vainly offered 
battle ; it was the plan of Fabius, thence named the Delayer, 
(Cunctator,) to give him no opportunity of fighting, but to 
wear him out by delay. He accordingly kept on the hills 
above him, followed him whithersoever he went, made partial 
attacks under advantageous circumstances, and thus raised 
the spirit and confidence of his troops. Hannibal, having 
exhausted Apulia, entered Samnium, where he plundered 
the district of Beneventum and took the town of Telesia, 
Fabius still following him at a distance of one or two days' 
march, but giving no opportunity for fighting. It is re- 
markable, that though the Romans had suffered such defeats, 
not one of their allies had as yet fallen off. Hannibal hoped 
that by an irruption into Campania he should be able to 
force Fabius to give battle, or if he did not, that this con- 
fession of the inferiority of the Romans in the field would 
have its due effect on the minds of the allies. He there- 
fore marched by Allifae and Cales to Casilinum, wasted the 

* As there was no consul at Rome to nominate him, he was created 
Pro-dictator. 

18 



206 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Falernian district to Sinuessa, and encamped on the Vul- 
turnus. Fabius moved along the Massic hills ; but neither 
the sight of the burning villages in the valley beneath, nor 
the reproaches and entreaties of Minucius and the other offi- 
cers, could induce him to change his system and descend 
into the plain. 

Hannibal, seeing there vv'as no chance of a battle, pre- 
pared to retire, by the way he came, into quarters for the 
winter. Fabius hoped now to take him at an advantage : 
having placed a sufficient force to guard the pass near Tar- 
racina,* he occupied the town of Casilinum and the hill of 
Callicula, and posted his army on an eminence on the road 
by which the enemy must move for the pass. Hannibal, 
seeing the way thus impeded, and despairing of being able 
to force it, had recourse to stratagem. He had two thou- 
sand of the strongest oxen in the booty collected, and bun- 
dles of brushwood tied on their horns. In the latter part 
of the night, he directed the baggage-drivers to set fire to 
these bundles, and drive the oxen up the hill close to the 
pass ; and the light troops to hasten and occupy its summit. 
The oxen, infuriated by the heat and flame, ran wildly up 
the hill ; the Romans, who guarded the pass, thinking from 
the number of lights that the enemy was escaping that way, 
made all the speed they could to occupy the summit; but 
they found the Punic light troops there already; both re- 
mained inactive waiting for the daylight. Hannibal mean- 
time had led the rest of his army through the pass, and he 
sent some Spanish troops, who speedily routed the Romans 
on the hill. He then marched leisurely through Samnium 
into Apulia, where he took the town of Geronium, before 
which he pitched his camp; Fabius, who followed him,^ en- 
camped at Larinum. 

The dictator, being obliged to return to Rome on some 
religious affairs, committed the command of the army to the 
master of the horse, imploring him on no account to give 
battle. But Minucius little heeded these admonitions ; he 
quitted the hills where he was posted, and came nearer to 
the Punic camp ; and he had the advantage in some slight 
actions which ensued. These successes were greatly mag- 
nified at Rome ; and the people, who were weary of the sal- 
utary caution of Fabius, were induced to pass a decree for 
making the authority of the master of the horse equal with 

"* Probably the pass of Lautulos. See above, p. 134. 



HANNIBAL AND FABIUS CUNCTATOR. 207 

that of the dictator. Fabius, who had returned to the army, 
made no complaint ; he divided the troops with Minucius, 
and they formed two separate camps, about a mile and a 
half asunder. 

Hannibal, who was informed of all that occurred, hoped 
now to be able to take advantage of Minucius's impetuosity. 
There was a valley between their camps, in which, though it 
contained no bushes suited for an ambuscade, there were 
sundry hollows where troops might lie concealed, and in 
these he placed during the night five hundred horse and five 
thousand foot ; and that they might not be discovered by 
the Roman foragers, he sent at dawn some light troops to 
occupy an eminence in the middle of the plain. Minucius, 
as soon as he saw these troops, directed his light troops to 
advance and drive them off"; he then sent his horse, and 
finally led out his heavy infantry. Hannibal kept sending 
aid to his men, and meantime led on his horse and heavy 
foot. His horse drove the Roman light troops back on those 
of the line, and he then gave the signal to those in ambush 
to rise ; the Romans were now on the very verge of a total 
defeat, when Fabius led his troops to their relief Hanni- 
bal,, when he saw the good order of the dictator's army, drew 
off" his men, fearing to hazard an action with fresh troops. 
As he retired, he observed that the cloud which had lain so 
long on the tops of the mountains had at last come down 
in rain and tempest. Minucius candidly acknowledged his 
fault and the superior wisdom of the dictator, and the whole 
army encamped together again. 

The winter passed away, only marked by some slight 
skirmishes. At Rome, when the time of the elections came, 
the consuls chosen were C. Terentius Varro, a plebeian,* 
and L. JErailius PauUus, a patrician. Instead of the usual 
number of four legions, eight Vvere now raised, each of five 
thousand foot and three hundred horse, and the allies gave 
as usual an equal number of foot and thrice as many horse. 
King Hiero sent a large supply of corn, and one thousand 
slingers and Cretan archers. 

As soon as the season for the ripening of the corn ap- 
proached, (536,) Hannibal moved and occupied the citadel 

* From Livy's account of Varro, we are to suppose that he was a vul- 
gar, low-born demagogue. He says (xxii. 25) that he was the son of a 
butcher ; yet we find him continued in command for some years after 
his defeat, which can hardly be ascribed to mere popular favor. 



208 HISTORY OF ROME. 

of a town named Cannae, where the Romans had their mag- 
azines. The consuls of the former year, who commanded 
the army in these parts, finding their situation hazardous, 
and the allies inclined to revolt, sent to Rome for instruc- 
tions, and it was resolved that battle should be given without 
delay. yEmilius and Terentius set out from Rome with the 
new-raised troops, and their whole united force amounted 
to eighty-seven thousand horse and foot. Fabius and other 
prudent men, placing their only reliance on JEmilius, who 
had distinguished himself in the Illyrian wars, anxiously im- 
pressed on him the necessity of caution, and of restraining 
his vain and ignorant colleague, as this army might be in a 
great measure regarded as Rome's last stake. 

As Hannibal was greatly superior in cavalry, it was the 
advice of yEmilius not to risk an action in the plain ; but 
Varro, ignorant and confident, on his day of command (for 
the Roman consuls when together took it day and day 
about) led the army nearer to where the enemy lay. Han- 
nibal attacked the line of march, but was driven off" with 
some loss ; and next day yEmilius, not wishing to fight, and 
unable to fall back with safety, encamped on the Aufidus, 
placing a part of the army on the other side of the river, a 
little more than a mile in advance of his camp, and equally 
distant from that of Hannibal, to protect his own and annoy 
the enemy's foragers. Hannibal, having explained to his 
troops the advantages to be derived from an immediate 
action, led them over the river and encamped on the same 
side with the main army of the Romans, and on the second 
day he offered battle, which ^milius prudently declined. 
He then sent the Numidians across the river to attack those 
wlio were watering from the lesser camp. The patience of 
Varro was now exhausted, and next day at sunrise he led 
his troops over the river, and joining with them those in the 
lesser camp drew them up in order of battle. The line faced 
the south;* the Roman horse were on the right wing by 
the river side ; the troops of the line, drawn up deeper 
than usual, extended thence ; the horse of the allies were 
on the left wing, the light troops in advance of the line. 
Hannibal, having first sent over his light troops, led his 
army also to the other side of the river. He set his Spanish 

* Livy says that the arid wind, named the Vii]turnus,blew clouds of 
dust in the faces of the Romans. This is not noticed by Polybius, and 
if it was the case it was probably the fault of Varro, not the ski'^ '^^ ^' 
nibal, as some suppose, that placed them in this pot" ' . 



BATTLE OF CANN^. 209 

and Gallic horse on his left wing, opposite that of the 
Romans; then one half of his heavy African infantry;* 
next, the Spaniards and Gauls , after them the rest of the 
African foot, and on the right wing the Numidian horse. 
When his line had been thus* formed, he put forward the 
centre so as to give the whole the form of a half-moon. His 
whole force, inclusive of the Gauls, did not much exceed 
40,000 foot and 10,000 horse, while that of the Romans 
was 80,000 foot and about 6000 horse. On the one side, 
^milius commanded the right, Varro the left wing, the 
late consul Servilius the centre; on the other, Hanno led 
the riorht, Hasdrubal the left wincr, Hannibal himself the 
centre. 

The battle was begun, as usual, by the light troops; the 
Spanish and Gallic horse then charged ; the Roman horse, 
after a valiant resistance, overborne by numbers, broke and 
fled along the river; the light troops having fallen back on 
the heav3'-armed on both sides, these engaged : the Gauls 
and Spaniards who formed the top of the half-moon, being 
borne down by the weight of the Roman maniples, gave 
way after a brief but gallant resistance. The victors heed- 
lessly pressing on, the African foot on either side wheeled 
to the right and left, and surrounded them. iEmilius, who 
had commanded on the right, now came with a party of 
horse to the centre and took the command ; here he was 
opposed to Hannibal himself. The Numidians meantime 
kept the horse of the allies engaged ; till Hasdrubal, having 
cut to pieces the Roman horse which he had pursued, came 
to their aid : the allies then turned and fled ; Hasdrubal, 
leaving the Numidians to pursue them, fell with his heavy 
horse on the rear of the Roman infantry, ^milius fell 
bravely fighting ; that part of the Roman infantry which 
was surrounded was slaughtered to the last man ; the rest 
of the infantry was massacred on all sides; the Numidians 
cut to pieces the horse of the allies. The consul Varro 
escaped to Venusia with only seventy horse. A body of 
ten thousand foot, whom JEmilius had left to guard the 
camp, fell during the battle on that of Hannibal, which 
they were near taking ; but Hannibal, coming up after the 
battle, drove them back to their own camp with a loss of 
two thousand men, and there forced them to surrender. 

* Hannibal had armed his African and Spanish infantry after the 
Roman manner, with the Roman arms which had fallen into his hands. 
18* AA 



5^10 HISTORY OF ROME. 

This was the greatest defeat the Roman arms ever sus- 
tained. Out of 80,000 foot, according to Polybius, only 
3000 escaped, and 10,000 were made prisoners ; of 0000 
horse there remained but 370 at liberty, 2000 were taken. 
Among the slain were two qucestors ; twenty-one tribunes ; 
several former consuls, praetors, and sediles, among whom 
v/ere the consul ^milius, the late consul Servilius, and the 
late master of the horse Minucius; and eighty senators, or 
those who were entitled to a seat in the senate. The loss 
of the enemy was 4000 Gauls, 1500 Spaniards and Africans, 
and about 200 horse. 

A part of the Roman troops, who escaped to Canusium, 
put themselves there under ttie command of Ap. Claudius 
and P. Cornelius Scipio, who were military tribunes ; and 
as these were consulting with some of the other officers, 
word came that L. Ceecilius Metellus and some other young 
noblemen were planning to fly to the court of some foreign 
prince, utterly despairing of their country. Scipio rose, 
and followed by the rest went to the lodgings of Metellus, 
where the traitors were assembled : and there drawing his 
sword made them, under terror of death, swear never to de- 
sert their country.* 

When tidings of this unexampled defeat reached Rome, 
the consternation was such as cannot be described. Grief 
and female lamentation was every where to be heard, but 
the magnanimity of the senate remained unshaken. By the 
advice of Fabius Maximus, measures were taken for pre- 
serving tranquillity in the city, and ascertaining the position 
and designs of the victorious and the condition of the van- 
quished army. On account of the number of the slain, a 
general mourning for thirty days was appointed, and all 
public and private religious rites were suspended; Q,. Fabius 
Pictor t was sent to inquire of the god at Delphi ; the Fatal 
Books were consulted, and by their injunction a Greek man 
and woman and a Gallic man and woman were buried alive 
in the Ox-market. Measures being thus taken to appease 
the wrath of Heaven, they proceeded to employ the means 
of defence. C. Claudius Marcellus, the propraetor, was sent 
to take the command at Canusium, where about ten thousand 

* Liv. xxii. 53. The censors of the year 538 deprived Metellus and 
his companions of their horses, and made them serarians, on account 
of their conduct on this occasion. 

t This is the earliest Roman historian. 



PROGRESS OF HANNIBAL. 211 

men were now assembled. M. Junius was made dictator, 
and by enrolling all above and some under seventeen years 
of age, four legions and one thousand horse were raised; 
eight thousand able-bodied slaves were, with their own con- 
sent, purchased from their masters and enrolled in the le- 
gions ; the arms, the spoils of former wars, which hung in 
the temples and porticoes, were now taken down and used. 

It was apprehended at Rome that Hannibal might march 
at once for the city, and it is said that Maharbal had urged 
him to do so, and, on his hesitating, told him that he knew how 
to conquer, but not to use his victory. But the able general 
knew too well the small chance of success in such an attempt, 
and was well aware of how much more importance it was to 
try to detach the allies of Rome ; and in this he soon had 
abundant success. The Samnites, Lucanians, Bruttians, 
most of the Greek towns, great part of Apulia and Campania, 
and all Cisalpine Gaul turned against Rome, whose power 
v/as now thought to be at an end. 

Yet never was Rome's steadfastness greater than at the 
present moment. Hannibal, being in want of money, offered 
his Roman prisoners their liberty at a moderate ransom. 
Ten of them were sent to Rome, with Carthalo, a Punic 
officer, to consult the senate, on their oath to return. When 
they drew nigh to Rome, alictor met Carthalo, ordering him off 
the Roman territory before night ; the senate, though assailed 
by the tears and prayers of the families of the captives, were 
swayed by the stern, rigid sentiments of T. Manlius Torqua- 
tus, and replied that they should not be redeemed. One of 
the envoys had, when leaving the Punic camp, returned to 
it on some pretext, and thinking, or aifecting to think, him- 
self thereby released from his oath, remained at Rome ; but 
the senate had him taken and sent back to Hannibal. When 
Terentius Varro returned to Rome, all orders went out to 
meet him, and thanked him for not having despaired of the 
republic. How different, as Livy remarks, would have been 
the reception of a defeated Punic general ! 

Hannibal, having entered Samnium, and made himself 
master of the town of Compsa, advanced to Campania, where 
the popular party in Capua, under the guidance of a dema- 
gogue of noble birth, named Pacuvius Calavius, had made 
an alliance with him, and took up his quarters in that luxu- 
rious city. About this time he despatched his brother Mago 
to Carthage, with an account of his successes and a demand 
of men, money, and supplies. Mago, it is said, emptied out 



212 HISTORY OF ROME. 

before the senate a bushel full of gold rings, the ornament of 
the equestrian order at Rome, to prove the magnitude of the 
losses of the Romans; but Hanno and the anti-Barcine* 
party still opposed the war, and advised to seek peace. The 
opposite party, hovt^ever, prevailed ; it vi^as voted to send him 
4000 Numidians, 40 elephants, and a large sum of money ; 
and Mago and another officer were sent to Spain to hire a 
body of 20,000 foot and 4000 horse. 



CHAPTER IV. 

HANNIBAL IN CAMPANIA. DEFEAT OF POSTUMIUS. AF- 
FAIRS OF SPAIN. TREATY BETWEEN HANNIBAL AND 

KING PHILIP. HANNIBAL REPULSED AT NOLA. SUCCESS 

OF HANNO IN BRUTTIUM. AFFAIRS OF SARDINIA, OF 

SPAIN, OF SICILY. ELECTIONS AT ROME. DEFEAT 

OF HANNO. SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. AFFAIRS OF SPAIN 

AND AFRICA. TAKING OF TARENTUM. SUCCESSES OF 

HANNIBAL. 

In the city of Nola, as at Capua, the popular party was 
adverse, the aristocratic favorable, to the cause of Rome. 
Hannibal, therefore, hoping to get this town as he had gotten 
Capua, led his troops into its territory. The Nolan senate 
instantly sent off to the prsetor Marcellus,t who was at Casil- 
inum with an army, and he immediately set out, and keeping 
mostly to the hills, reached the town ; Hannibal having just 
departed to make an effort to gain Neapolis, for he was ex- 
tremely anxious to get possession of a good seaport on this 
coast. Failing, however, in his attempt, he went to Nuceria, 
which he forced to surrender ; and he then returned and en- 
camped before the gates of Nola ; Marcellus, fearing treach- 
ery on the part of the people, retired into the town. Each 
day the two armies were drawn out, and slight skirmishes, 
but no general action, took place. At length the senators 
gave Marcellus information of a plot to shut the gates behind 
him when he had led his army out, and to admit the enemy. 

* The party who supported Hannibal at Carthage wis named Bar- 
cine, from his father's epithet Barcas. 

t The conqueror of the Gauls. See above, p. 194. 



HANNIBAL IN CAMPANIA. 213 

He therefure next day, instead of leading out his forces as 
usual, stationed them within the town; the legionaries and 
Roman horse at the middle gate, the recruits, the light 
troops, and the allies' horse at the two side ones; and he 
gave strict orders for no one to appear on the walls. Han- 
nibal, when he drew out his army as usual and saw no one 
to oppose him, judged at once that the plot was discovered, 
and he resolved to attempt a storm, in reliance on a rising 
of the people in his favor. Having sent a part of his troops 
back to the camp for ladders and the other requisite imple- 
ments, he led his army up to the walls. Suddenly the gates 
all opened, the trumpets sounded, the Roman army rushed 
out on all sides, and he was forced to retire with a consid- 
erable loss. Marcellus then closed the gates again, and 
having instituted an inquiry, put to death seventy persons 
whose guilt was proved. 

Hannibal, having retired from Nola, went and laid siege to 
Acerrse, the people of which town, despairing of being able 
to defend it, fled from it in the night. He then advanced 
and laid siege to Casilinum, which was gallantly defended 
by a small but resolute garrison; and finding he had no 
chance of taking it, he led off his army to winter at Capua. 
Here, as vi^as to be expected, his troops indulged in all kinds 
of luxury and debauchery ; and ignorant, rhetorical writers, 
who could not discern the real causes of the subsequent de- 
cline of Hannibal's power, ascribe it to this wintering in 
Capua. 

When the weather grew milder, Hannibal again invested 
Casilinum. The dictator Junius was at hand with an army 
of twenty-five thousand men, but he was obliged to go to 
Rome on account of the auspices, and he charged his master 
of the horse, Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, not to attempt any 
thing during his absence. Gracchus, therefore, though the 
garrison were suffering the extremes of famine, could not 
attempt to convey them supplies. All he could do was to 
send barrels filled with corn down the stream by night, which 
the people watched for and stopped ; quantities of nuts were 
in like manner floated down to them. Unfortunately the 
Vuiturnus happening to be swollen one night, overflowed, 
and some of the barrels were carried out on the bank where 
the enemy lay. The river now was strictly watched; and 
the garrison, having eaten the leather of their shields and 
every species of vile food, at length capitulated. Most of 
the towns of Bruttium which remained faithful to Rome 
were soon after forced to surrender. 



214 HISTORY OF ROME. 

But a still greater misfortune befell the Romans in the 
north of Italy ; L. Postumius, the consul elect, as he marched 
with an army of twenty-five thousand men, through a wood 
in which the Gauls had sawn the trees on the way-side so as 
to be easily thrown down, was attacked by them; numbers 
were crushed to death by the trees, and few of the whole 
army escaped. The consul's skull was fashioned into a 
drinking cup by the victors, to be used at their principal 
temple. The news of this misfortune caused great terror at 
Rome ; but the senate carried on the business of the state 
with their usual equanimity. Their body, which had been 
greatly reduced, received at this time an accession of one 
hundred and seventy-seven members.* Marcellus was elect- 
ed as colleague to Gracchus, in the room of Postumius; but 
the election being pronounced faulty by the augurs, Fabius 
Maxfmus was chosen in his stead. 

Having brought the war in Italy to the end of the third 
year, we will now take a view of the progress of affairs in 
Spain. 

Cn. Scipio on arriving' in Spain (534) speedily reduced 
the whole coast from the Pyrenees to the Ebro. He ad- 
vanced into the interior, and defeated Hanno at a place 
named Scissis. The Punic general was made prisoner, 
with two thousand of his men, and six thousand were slain. 
Hasdrubal meantime crossed the Ebro, and fell on and drove 
to their ships, with loss, the crews of the Roman fleet at 
Tarraco, (Tarragona.) He however always retired before 
Scipio, who reduced the Ilergetes and some other peoples 
of that country. The following spring (535) Scipio sailed 
to the mouth of the Ebro, where the Punic fleet and army 
lay, and by a sudden attack drove the fleet of forty &hips 
ashore, and carried away twenty-five of them ;' and he after- 
wards defeated the Ilergetes, who had resumed their arms. 
As Hasdrubal was coming to their aid, he was recalled by 

* Sp. Carvilius on this occasion proposed that two out of the senate 
of each of the peoples of the Latin Name should be given tlie full Ro- 
man franchise, and admitted into the Roman senate. This liberal and 
prudent project was of course treated with scorn. M. Fabius Buteo 
was made dictator for the purpose of completing the senate, which he 
did in the following manner : — He selected first those who had borne 
curule offices since the censorship of iEmilius and C. Flaminius, and 
had not yet been admitted into the senate ; then those who had been 
sediles, tribunes of the people, or quoestors; finally, those who had held 
no office, but had in their houses the spoils of enemies or a civic crown. 
It is remarkable that there were now two dictators at a time, and that 
Fabius had no master of the horse. 



TREATY BETWEEN HANNIBAL AND KING PHILIP. 215 

tidings that the Celtiberians, instigated by the Romans, had 
invaded the Punic province and taken three towns ; he 
hastened back to its defence, but vi'as defeated in two battles, 
with the loss of 15,000 men slain and 4000 taken. 

In this state of aifairs P. Scipio, whose command had 
been prolonged, arrived with thirty ships of war, eight thousand 
troops, and a large supply of stores. The Romans now 
crossed the Ebro, and advanced to Saguntum, as it was here 
that the hostages which Hannibal had required from the 
Spanish princes were kept, and the garrison was not strong, 
and if the hostages were released those princes might be 
more easily induced to join the Romans. Fortune here fa- 
vored them; a Spaniard named Abelux persuaded Bostar, 
the commandant, that his wisest course would be to send 
the hostages back to their friends, whose gratitude might 
then be relied on ; and he offered to be himself the agent in 
the business. Bostar gave his consent ; Abelux went that 
night secretly to the Roman camp, and engaged with Scipio 
to put the hostages into his hands ; and the following night, 
when he left the town with them, a party of Romans, as 
had been arranged, took him and them and brought them 
into the camp. The hostages were forthwith sent off to 
their friends, and this apparent generosity produced a great 
effect in favor of the Romans. The approach of winter 
put a stop to all further operations. 

The following year (536) Hasdrubal had to turn all his 
forces against a people named the Carpesians,* who had 
risen in arms. When he had subdued them, he received 
orders from home to lead his army into Italy to join his bro- 
ther. At his earnest desire, Himilco was sent with a fleet 
and army to succeed him, as otherwise, he assured the 
senate, all Spdin would be lost. He then marched for the 
Ebro; the Romans, learning his intentions, crossed that 
river, and an engagement ensued, in which Hasdrubal sus- 
tained a total defeat. Thisi victory decided those who were 
wavering, and nearly all Spain now joined the Romans. 

In Italy, at the commencement of the next campaign, 
(537,) the two main armies remained long inactive. The 
Romans were encamped at Suessula; Hannibal at Tifata, 
over Capua. During this time the Romans found that a 
contest with a new and powerful enemy awaited them. 
Philip, king of Macedonia, having ended the Confederate 

* This people dwelt on the Tagus ; their capital was Toletum, (Toledo.) 



Si 6 HISTORY OF ROME. 

War,* resolved to join his arms with those of Hannibal, to 
whom he sent an embassy^ : and a treaty was made, by which 
the king engaged to invade Italy with a fleet of two hun- 
dred ships; and that country being reduced under the do- 
minion of the Carthaginians, they were to pass over and aid 
in bringing Greece and the islands under that of Philip. t 
Fortunately for the Romans, the ship in which the envoys 
were returning fell into their hands, and the summer was 
gone before a second embassy reached the Punic camp and 
returned, so that the season of action was lost. P. Vale- 
rius Flaccus was stationed with fifty ships at Tarentum to 
watch the progress of events beyond the sea, and the praetor 
M. Valerius Lasvinus had orders, in case of any hostile move- 
ments there, to go to Tarentum, and to land his troops on 
the opposite coast, and transfer the war thither. 

The consul Fabius at length put his troops in motion, and 
having passed the Vulturnus, and taken some of the re- 
volted towns, marched between Hannibal's camp and Capua 
to Vesuvius, where Marcellus lay, whom he sent with his 
troops to the defence of Nola. Marcellus while here made 
frequent incursions into the adjoining parts of Samnium 
and laid them waste, and at the earnest desire of the Sam- 
nites Hannibal led his troops against Nola, where he was 
joined by Hanno with his forces from Bruttium. Marcel- 
lus having drawn up his troops, as before, within the town, 
made a sally ; but a sudden storm of wind and rain came 
on and parted the combatants. The rain lasted all that 
night and part of the next day. On the third day a general 
engagement was fought, and Hannibal, it is said, was re- 
pulsed with the loss of 5000 men and six elephants; and 
the next day 1272 Spanish and Numidian horse went over 
to the Romans, whom they served faithfully ^ the rest of 
the war. 

Hannibal having dismissed Hanno went into Apulia for 
the winter, and fixed his camp near the town ofArpi. 
Hanno meantime endeavored to reduce the Greek towns 
in Bruttium, which, chiefly out of fear and hatred of the 
Bruttians, remained faithful to Rome. His attempt on 
Rhegium failed ; but ihe Locrians were forced to form an 

■^ Histor}'^ of Greece, Fart III. chap. vii. 

t liivy, xxiii. 33. Polybius (vii. 9) gives a copy of the treaty, 
which is a very curious document. It only speaks however of an alh- 
ance offensive and defensive, and of obhging the Romans to give up 
all their possessions on the farther coast of the Adriatic. 



AFFAIRS OF SARDINIA. 217 

alliance with Carthage. The Bruttians, enraged at being 
balked of the plunder of these two towns, collected a body of 
fifteen thousand men, and resolved to win the wealthy city 
of Croton for themselves. In this, as in almost every other 
town, the men of property were for, the lower orders against, 
the Romans. The latter put the town into the possession of 
the Bruttians ; the optimates retired to the citadel, and the 
Bruttians and the people being unable to take it applied to 
Hanno. As the circuit of the town greatly exceeded the 
wants of the inhabitants, Hanno proposed to those in the 
citadel to receive a colony of Bruttians into the town ; but 
they declared that they would sooner die: at last they con- 
sented to emigrate, and retire to Locri. In these parts 
Rhegium alone now remained to the Romans. 

In Sardinia a man named Hampsicora had, at the insti- 
gation of the Carthaginians, raised the standard of revolt 
against the Romans. The ill health of the pro-prsetor, Q,. Mu- 
cius, prevented active operations against him ; but the prae- 
tor P. Manlius, who now came out as his successor, finding 
himself at the head of a force of 22,000 foot and 1200 horse, 
advanced, and encamped near the Sardinian army. Hamp- 
sicora had left the command with his son, and the inexpe- 
rienced youth venturing to engage the Romans was defeat- 
ed, with a loss of 3000 men killed and 1800 taken. This 
victory would have ended the war, but that Hasdrubal 
landed with a Punic army. Having joined Hampsicora, 
he gave Manlius battle. After a conflict of four hours vic- 
tory declared for Rome : the enemy had 12,000 slain, 3700 
taken, among whom were Hasdrubal and two other Carthagin- 
ians of rank, Hanno and Mago. Hampsicora put an end to 
himself a few days after, and the whole island then submitted. 

In Spain the Scipios gave a decisive defeat to the three 
Punic generals Hasdrubal, Mago, and Hamilcar, who were 
besieging the town of Illiturgis, (near Andujar.) It is said 
that with but sixteen thousand men they routed sixty thou- 
sand, killing more men than were in their own array. 
Shortly after they gavp them another great defeat at a 
town named Intibili. Several more of the native peoples 
now declared for the Romans. 

The steady ally of Rome, the good king Hiero, died this 
year, after a life of ninety, a reign of fifty years. He was 
succeeded by his grandson Hieronymus, a boy of but fifteen 
years of age. A party in Syracuse, adverse to Rome, per- 
suaded this giddy, profligate youth to seek the friendship of 

19 BB 



218 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Carthage, and he sent an embassy with that view to Han- 
nibal. His overtures were eagerly accepted; a treaty was 
formed, by which the island was to be divided between 
them, and Hieronymus commenced hostilities. He was 
however assassinated shortly afterwards at Leontini ; bilt the 
anti-Roman party still maintained the superiority at Syra- 
cuse. 

The time of the elections at Rome being arrived, (538,) 
the consul Fabius returned to hold them. The prerogative 
tribe {i. e. the one allotted to vote first) having named T. 
Otacilius and M. ^railius, the consul addressed them, and 
reminding them of their bounden duty in the present con- 
dition of their country to elect none but the ablest men, de- 
sired them to vote over again. They then chose himself and 
M. Marcellus; and all the other tribes followed their ex- 
ample, in selecting the only men fit to oppose to Hannibal ; 
and old men called to mind the similar consulates of Fabius 
Maximus and P. Decius in the Gallic, and of Papirius and 
Carvilius in the Samnite war. It was resolved to have 
eighteen legions this year, (for which purpose six new ones 
were to be raised,) and a fleet of one hundred and fifty ships 
of war. One hundred new ships were built, and every citi- 
zen whose fortune had been rated at 50,000 asses and up- 
wards in the last census was obliged to furnish one or more 
sailors, according to his property, and to give them a year's 
pay. 

The consul Fabius having returned to his army, the Cam- 
panians, fearing that he would open the campaign with the 
siege of Capua, sent to Arpi to implore Hannibal to return 
to their defence. He therefore came and resumed his posi- 
tion on Mount Tifata, whence he moved down to the coast ; 
and after making an ineffectual attempt on Puteoli, which 
the Romans had fortified, he, at the invitation of the popu- 
lar party, approached Nola. But Marcellus had thrown him- 
self, with a force of six thousand foot and three hundred 
horse, into it. An action, as before, was fought under the 
walls, rather to the disadvantage oi Hannibal, who, giving 
up all hopes of taking the town, broke up in the night and 
marched for Tarentum, where he had a secret understand- 
ing with some of the citizens, who had formerly been his 
prisoners. 

As the Roman power was annihilated in Bruttium and 
Lucania, Hanno led his army of seventeen thousand foot 
and twelve hundred horse, composed of Punic, Lucanian, 



DEFEAT OF HANNO. 219 

and Bruttian troops, into Samnium, to occupy the impor- 
tant town of Beneventum. But Fabius had sent orders to 
Tib. Gracchus, who was at Nuceria with two legions, prin- 
cipally composed of Volones,* to hasten to preoccupy it. 
Gracchus had executed his orders, and when Hanno came, 
and, encamping on the river Calor about three miles off, be- 
gan to lay the country waste, he led his troops out against 
him. As the Volones, when leaving their winter quarters, 
had begun to murmur at not having yet received their free- 
dom, he had written to the senate on the subject, and had 
received authority to act as he deemed best. He now as- 
sembled his troops, and told them that whoever next day 
brought him the head of an enemy, should have his freedom. 
At sunrise he led them out ; the enemy did not decline the 
proffered battle. They fought for four hours with equal ad- 
vantage, when Gracchus, being told by the tribunes that the 
condition on which he had promised freedom, greatly retard- 
ed the men, gave orders for them to fling away the heads and 
grasp their swords. The enemies were soon driven to their 
camp with great slaughter; the victors entered pellmell with 
them, and of the whole army but two thousand, (the number of 
the slain on the side of the Romans,) and these chiefly horse, 
escaped. Gracchus conferred the promised boon of freedom 
on the spot, and led back his triumphant army to Beneven- 
tum, where the people all poured out to meet them, and craved 
the proconsul's permission to entertain them. Leave was 
granted ; tables were then spread in the streets ; the Volones 
feasted, with caps or bands of white wool on their heads. 
Gracchus had this scene afterwards painted in the temple of 
Liberty, which his father had built on the Aventine. 

The two consuls meantime had laid siege to and reduced 
Casilinum; Fabius then entered Sanmium and laid it waste; 
Hannibal's plans on Tarentum w^re foiled by M. Valerius, 
who put a garrison into the tow^n. On the other hand, 
Gracchus having sent som.e cohorts of Lucanians to plunder 
the hostile territory, they were fallen on and totally cut to 
pieces by Hanno. 

In Syracuse, after some of the atrocities familiar to the 
Greek democracies, the supreme power was transferred from 
the hands of the party who were for moderation and remain- 
ing faithful to Rome, to the rabble and the mercenary sol- 
diers. War was resolved on, and the chief command given 

* That is, the volunteer slaves, who had been armed. See above, 
p. 211. 



220 HISTORY OF ROME. 

to Hippocrates and Epicydes, two Carthaginians of Syra- 
cusan descent, whom Hannibal had sent to Hieronymus. 
Marcellus, to whom the conduct of the war against Syracuse 
was committed, took Leontini by assault, and then came and 
encamped at the Olympium before Syracuse,* while his fleet 
assailed the wall of Acradina on the sea-side. Quinqueremes 
were lashed together, and wooden towers erected on them, 
and engines plied, while light troops kept up a constant dis- 
charge from vessels ranged behind them. But Archimedes, 
the greatest mechanist of the age, was m Syracuse ; and in 
the time of Hiero he had placed engines along the walls, 
which now baffled all the skill and efforts of the Romans,! 
and Marcellus found himself obliged to convert the siege 
into a blockade. Himilco, with a Punic army, having gained 
over Agrigentum and some other towns, came and encamp- 
ed on the Anapus, about eight miles from Syracuse ; but 
finding it in no need of aid, he led off his forces to the town 
of Murgantia, which the people put into his hands, with the 
Roman garrison and magazines which were in it. The peo- 
ple of Enna, in the centre of the island, being suspected by 
the Roman commandant of a similar design, he fell on and 
massacred them as they were sitting in assembly; and Mar- 
cellus, so far from blaming the deed, gave the plunder of the 
town to the soldiers. As Enna was sacred to the goddesses 
Ceres and Proserpina, the horror of this impious deed made 
most of the remaining towns declare for the Punic cause. 
Marcellus now fixed his winter camp at Leon, about five 
miles north of Syracuse. 

The Romans commenced this year active operations 
against the king of Macedonia, whom Laevinus defeated near 
the town of Apollonia in Epirus.^ In Spain, the advantage 
was on the side of the Romans, who gained some victories 
over their antagonists. 

The consuls for the next year (539) were Q,. Fabius Max- 
imus (son of the late consul) and Tib. Sempronius Grac- 
chus. The year is remarkably barren of events. Hanni- 
bal remained inactive in the neighborhood of Tarentum ; 

* See the description and plan of Syracuse, History of Greece, 
p. 235, 2d edit. 

t We are told that some of his machines were iron hands, which 
seizing the ships by the prow turned them up on the poop, and then 
let them fall ; and that by means of burning-glasses he set fire to seve- 
ral of the Roman vessels. (Livy, xxiii. 34. Zonaras, ix. 4.) 

t The whole of the wars between Philip and the Romans will be 
found in the History of Greece, Part HI. chap. vii. and -^iii. 



TAKING OF TARENTUM. 221 

Marcellus lay before Syracuse ; the consul Fabius recovered 
the town of Arpi. In Spain the Scipios were still suc- 
cessful ; they began to follow the example of the Cartha- 
ginians by taking the natives into pay, and a body of Celii- 
berians served under their standard. They also extended 
their views to Africa, where a Numidian prince named 
Syphax was at war with the Carthaginians. They sent 
three centurions to him to propose an alliance ; their offer 
was gladly accepted by the Numidian, and at his request 
one of the centurions remained with him to form and disci- 
pline a body of infantry, an arm in which the Numidians 
had been hitherto very deficient. But the Carthaginians 
formed an alliance with Gala, the king of that portion of the 
Numidians named Massylians ; and his troops, led by his 
son Masinissa, a youth of seventeen years of age, being 
joined with theirs, they gave Syphax a total defeat. He 
fled to the Maurusians and collected another army; but 
Masinissa pursued and prevented him from passing over to 
Spain as he had intended. 

The following year (540) was one of the most eventful 
of the war. Q,. Fulvius Flaccus and Ap. Claudius were 
chosen consuls, and the army was raised to three-and-twenty 
legions. 

Early in the year Tarentum fell into the possession of 
Hannibal, in the following manner.* A Tarentine envoy 
at Rome, named Phileas, persuaded his countrymen who 
were retained there as hostages to make their escape. They 
were pursued and taken at Tarracina, and being brought 
back were scourged and cast from the Tarpeian rock. This 
piece of cruelty irritated the minds of their friends and rel- 
atives at Tarentum, and thirteen young men entered into 
a plot to give the town up to Hannibal. Going out under 
the pretext of hunting, they sought the Punic camp, which 
lay at a distance of three days' march ; and two of them, 
named Nico and Philemenus, giving themselves up to the 
guards, demanded to be led into the presence of Hannibal. 
The plan was soon arranged, and Hannibal desired them, 
as they were going away, to drive off the cattle which would 
be sent out of the camp next morning to graze, as this would 
give them credit in the eyes of their countrymen, and help 
to conceal their dealings with him. They did as directed, 
and, by sharing their booty, gained great favor and many 

* Polybius, viii. 26. Livy, xxv. 7 — 11. 

19* 



222 HISTORY OF ROME. 

imitators. They thus went backwards and forwards seve- 
ral times, and it was arranged that the rest should remain 
quiet, while Philemenus, whose passion for the chase was 
well known, should keep going in and out under the pretext 
of hunting. He always went and came at night, alleging 
his fear of the enemy, and always returned loaded with 
game, partly killed by himself, partly given him by Hanni- 
bal. A portion of this he took care to give to Livius, the 
Roman commandant, and another part to the guards at the 
gate by which he used to conje in. At length he won their 
confidence so completely, that as soon as his whistle was 
heard outside in the night, the gate was opened, without 
any inquiry. 

Hannibal judged that the time for action was now arrived. 
He had hitherto feigned illness, lest the Romans should 
wonder at his staying so long in the one place; and he now 
did so more than ever. Then selecting ten thousand of his 
boldest and most active troops, both horse and foot, and di- 
recting them to take four days' provision, he set out with 
them before dawn ; a party of eighty Numidian horse pre- 
ceded them in order to scour the country, and prevent in- 
formation of their approach from being conveyed to Taren- 
tum. Philemenus was with him as his guide, and the march 
was arranged so as to reach the city by midnight. 

The day fixed on by the conspirators was one on which 
Livius was to be at a banquet at the place named the Mu- 
seum, close by the market. It was late in the evening 
when tidings came of the Numidians being seen, and he 
merely directed a party of horse to go out early in the 
morning and drive them off; at night he returned home 
without any suspicion, went to bed, and fell asleep. The 
conspirators remained on the watch for the signal arranged 
with Hannibal, who, when he drew near to the gate which 
had been agreed on, in the east part of the city, was to 
kindle a fire on a certain spot, and when those within had re- 
plied by a similar signal, both fires were to be extinguished. 
The signal was made and returned in due time; the con- 
spirators then rushed to the gate, killed the guards, and 
admitted Hannibal, who, leaving his horse without, moved 
on with his infantry, and took possession of the market. 
Meantime Philemenus was gone round with a thousand 
Africans to the ^ate he was used to enter at. He had the 
carcass of a huge wild-boar prepared for the purpose, and 
giving a whistle as usual, the wicket was opened. He him- 



SUCCESSES OF HANNIBAL. 223 

self and three others bore the carcass on a barrow, and 
while the guard was handling and admiring it, they killed 
him : they then let in thirty Africans who were behind 
them, and cutting the bars opened the gates and admitted 
all the rest, and they joined Hannibal at the market. He 
divided a body of two thousand Gauls into three parts, and 
sent them through the town, with orders to kill all the Ro- 
mans they met ; and the conspirators, who had gotten some 
Roman trumpets and learned how to sound them, stood at 
the theatre and blew, and as the soldiers hastened on all 
sides to the signal, they were met and slain. Livius at the 
first alarm had run down to the port, and getting into a boat 
passed over to the citadel. 

As soon as it was daylight Hannibal invited all the Ta- 
,rentines to come without arms to the market. When they 
appeared he spoke to them kindly as their friend, and dis- 
missed them with directions to set a mark on their houses. 
He then gave orders tD pillage all the houses not marked, 
as belonging to the Romans or their friends. 

As the citadel lay on a small peninsula, and was secured 
on the town side by a deep ditch and wall, there were no 
hopes of being able to take it. To secure the city, there- 
fore, Hannibal began to run a rampart parallel to that of 
the citadel ; the Romans attempted to impede the works, 
but were driven back with great loss. The rampart was 
then completed, and a ditch also run between it and the 
town ; and Hannibal retired and encamped on the Galsesus, 
about five miles off. When all was finished, some works 
were carried on against the citadel ; but the Romans, hav- 
ing been reenforced from Metapontum, made a sally by night 
and destroyed them. Hannibal saw that unless the Taren- 
tines were masters of the sea, there was no chance of re- 
ducing the citadel. But their ships which were in the har- 
bor could not get out, as that fortress commanded the 
entrance ; he therefore had them hauled along a street 
which ran across the peninsula into the open sea on the 
south side. The fleet then anchored before the citadel ; 
and Hannibal, leaving a garrison in the town, returned to 
winter in his former camp.* 

* Livy says that his authorities differed as to the year of the revolt of 
Tarentum, some placing it in 539, but the greater number, and nearest 
to the events, in 540. If this last be the true date, it must have been 
early in the spring ; yet Livy himself says Hannibal went into winter 
quarters immediately after it ; and Polybius (viii. 36, 13) says that he 



224 HISTORY OF ROME. 

In the beginning of May the Roman consuls and prsetors 
set out for their respective provinces. The two consuls, 
Q,. Fulvius and Ap. Claudius, encamped at Bovianum, in 
Samnium, intending to lay siege to Capua. The Campa- 
nians, being prevented by their presence from cultivating 
their lands, sent to Hannibal, imploring him to supply them 
vv^ith corn before the Romans entered their country. He 
ordered Hanno to attend to this matter, and this general 
came and encamped near Beneventum ; and having collected 
there a large supply of corn, sent vv^ord to the Campanians 
to come and fetch it. With their usual indolence and 
negligence, they came vi^ith little more than forty wagons, 
and Hanno, having rated them well for it, appointed another 
day. But the Beneventines now heard of it : they sent to 
inform the consuls ; and Fulvius set out with his army, 
and entered Beneventum by night. The Campanians came 
this time with two thousand wagons and a great crowd of 
people ; and Fulvius, hearing that Hanno was away to get 
corn, came before daylight and assailed the camp. As this 
lay on a hill, it cost the Romans much labor and loss to 
reach it ; and the consul having advised with his officers, 
ordered the call for retreat to be sounded ; but the soldiers 
heeded it not; they rushed on with emulative ardor, car- 
ried the rampart, and made themselves masters of the camp 
and all it contained. The consuls shortly after, having sum- 
moned Gracchus from Lucaniato the defence of Beneventum, 
proceeded to lay siege to Capua. But Gracchus was drawn 
by the treachery of a Lucanian into an ambush laid for hira 
by Mago, and he and all that were with him were slain. 

When the consuls entered Campania and began to lay it 
waste, the Campanians, aided by a body of two thousand 
horse which Hannibal had sent them, sallied forth and killed 
about fifteen hundred of the Romans. Hannibal himself 
soon appeared, and gave the consuls battle; but the en- 
gagement was broken off' by the sudden appearance in the 
distance of the army lately commanded by Gracchus, which 
each supposed to be coming to the aid of the other side. 
The consuls in the night divided their forces, Fulvius going 
toward Cumse, Claudius into Lucaijia. Hannibal pursued 
this last, who gave him the slip and returned to Capua. 
Chance however threw a victory into the hands of the Pu- 

remained there the rest of the winter. It seems therefore moM prob- 
able that the true time was the autumn or beginning of the winter of 539. 



TAKING OF SYRACUSE. 225 

nic general ; for a centurion named M. Centenius having 
boasted to the senate of all the mischief he could do the 
enemy, from his knowledge of the country, if they would 
let him have five thousand men, they had the folly to give 
him eight thousand, half citizens, half allies, and so many 
volunteers joined him on the way as doubled his army. With 
this force he entered Lucania, where Hannibal now was. 
But it was a far different thing to lead a company, and to 
command an army opposed to such a general as Hannibal, 
who speedily brought him to an action ; and of his whole 
force not more than one thousand men escaped. Hannibal 
moved thence into Apulia, where the prastor Cn. Fulvius lay 
with an army of eighteen thousand men at the town of Her- 
donia. The Roman general was rash and unskilful, and his 
army completely demoralized by laxity of discipline ; they 
therefore yielded the able Carthaginian an easy victory, and 
but two thousand men escaped from the field. 



CHAPTER V. 

taking of syracuse. defeat and death of the soipios. 

— Hannibal's march to rome. — surrender of capua. 

scipio in spain. taking of new carthage. affairs 

in italy. retaking of tarentum. defeat of has- 

drubal in spain. death of marcellus. march op 

hasdrubal. his defeat on the metaurus. 

While the war thus proceeded in Italy, Marcellus urged on 
the siege of Syracuse. Takmg advantage of a festival of 
Diana, (Artemis,) which the Syracusans were wont to cele- 
brate with abundance of wine and revelry, he one night 
scaled the walls and made himself master of the Epipolae. 
He encamped between Tycha and Neapolis,* to the inhab- 
itants of which he granted their lives and dwellings, but 
both quarters were given up to plunder. The commandant 
at Euryalus surrendered that important post on condition 
of the garrison being allowed to reenter the town. Mar- 

* Part of the Temenites. See History of Greece. 

CO 



226 HISTORY OF ROME. 

cellus then formed three camps in order to blockade Acra- 
dina, while a Roman fleet lay without to prevent succors 
or provisions from being brought by sea. 

After a few days, Himilco and Hippocrates came to the 
relief of the town ; they encamped at the Great Harbor, 
and it was arranged, that while they attacked the division 
under the legate T. Crispinus at the Olympium, Epicydes 
should make a sally from Acradina against Marcellus, and 
the Punic fleet in the Harbor get close in to shore, to pre- 
vent any aid being sent to Crispinus. The whole plan 
however miscarried, for they were repulsed on all sides. It 
being now the autumn, fevers, produced by the moisture of 
the soil, broke out in both armies : the Sicilians in the army 
of Hippocrates returned home to escape it ; but the Punic 
troops having no retreat all perished, and among them their 
two generals. The Romans suffered less, as they were in 
the city, and had the shelter of the houses. 

Bomilcar, who had run out of the Great Harbor after 
the capture of EpipolaB, was now at Cape Pachynus with one 
hundred and thirty ships of Vv'ar and seventy transports, but 
the easterly winds kept him from doubling it. Epicydes, 
fearing he might go back, gave the command at Acradina 
to the leaders of the mercenaries, and went to him in order 
to induce him to give battle to the Roman fleet, which was 
inferior to his in number. The two fleets were now lying 
one on each side of the cape ; and as soon as the wind ceased 
to blow from the east, Bomilcar stood out to sea in order to 
double it, but seeing the Roman ships in motion he lost 
courage, and sending word to the transports to go back to 
Africa, made all sail for Tarentum. Epicydes then, giving 
up Syracuse for lost, retired to Agrigentum. 

A surrender of Syracuse, on favorable terms, was now 
near being effected. Some of the inhabitants, learning that 
Marcellus would consent to leave them in the enjoyment of 
their liberty and laws, under the dominion of Rome, fell on 
and slew the governors whom Epicydes had left, and having 
called an assembly of the people, elected praetors, (strategi,) 
some of whom were sent to treat with Marcellus. Matters 
were thus on the point of being accommodated, when 
the deserters in the town, persuading the mercenaries that 
their cause was the same with theirs, fell on and killed the 
praetors and several of the inhabitants, and then appointed 
six governors of their own, three for Acradina and three 
for the Island. The mercenaries, however, soon saw that 



DEFEAT AND DEATH OF THE SCIPIOS. 227 

their case was very different from that of the deserters ; 
and one of the three commandants of Acradina, a Spaniard 
named Mericus, made a secret agreement to put the town 
into the hands of Marcellus. For this purpose he proposed 
that each commandant should take charge of a separate 
part of the town. This was agreed to, and the part as- 
signed to himself being the Island, from the fount of Are- 
thusa to the mouth of the Greek Harbor, he one night 
admitted a party of Roman soldiers at the gate next tcv the 
fount. In the morning, at daybreak, Marcellus made a 
general attack on Acradina, and while all the efforts of the 
besieged were directed against him, troops were landed 
on the island, and, with little loss, they made themselves 
masters of it and of a part of Acradina. Marcellus then 
sounded a recall, lest the royal treasures should be pillaged 
in the confusion. 

The deserters who were in Acradina having made their 
escape the town surrendered unconditionally, and Mar- 
cellus, when he had secured the royal treasure for the 
state, gave the city up to pillage. During the pillaging a 
soldier entered the room where Archimedes was deeply en- 
gaged over his geometrical figures, and not knowing who 
he was, killed him. Marcellus, who was greatly grieved at 
this mishap, gave him an honorable sepulture. The nu- 
merous pictures, statues, and other works of art, in which 
Syracuse abounded, were sent to Rome to adorn that cap- 
ital. Marcellus shortly after gave the Punic forces and 
their allies a great defeat on the river Himera. 

But equal success did not attend the Roman arms in 
Spain ; for, the Scipios having divided their forces, Publius, 
hearing that a Spanish prince named Indibilis was coming 
with seven thousand five hundred men to join the Punic 
army, set out to give him battle on the road. In the midst 
of the action the Numidian horse came up, and then the 
rest of the Punic army; the Romans were cut to pieces, 
and Scipio himself slain. About a month after, a similar 
fate befell Cn. Scipio and his army. From the wrecks of 
» the two armies and the garrisons a new one was formed; 
the soldiers 'themselves chose a knight, named L. Marcius, 
to be their general, and under his command they repelled 
an attack on their own camp, and afterwards stormed two 
Punic camps with great slaughter of the enemies. 

The siege of Capua was now (541) the chief object of 
interest in Italy. Fulvius and Claudius had shut in that 



228 HISTORY OF ROME. 

town completely by a double ditch and rampart ; famine 
pressed, and the difficulty of communicating with Hannibal 
was extreme. At length, on being informed of the condition 
of his allies, the Punic general came to their aid, and a com- 
bined attack from within and without was made on the Ro- 
man lines. It was, however, repulsed with great loss on the 
part of the assailants, and Hannibal saw that the only chance 
of saving Capua was to menace Rome, as the army would 
probably be recalled to its defence. Having, therefore, sent 
word to the people of Capua to hold out manfully, he col- 
lected boats, and put his army over the Vulturnus ; then 
crossing the Liris, marched rapidly along the Latin road 
by Ferentinum, Anagnia, Lavici, Tusculum, and Gabii, and 
encamped within eight miles of the city. 

The news of Hannibal's march caused great alarm at 
Rome. It was at first proposed to recall all the troops to 
the defence of the city ; but at last it was thought sufficient 
for one of the proconsuls to leave Capua, and come with a 
part of their forces. As Claudius was confined by a wound, 
Fulvius proceeded with sixteen thousand men along the 
Appian road. He entered Rome at the Capene gate, and 
being joined in command with the consuls, marched his 
forces through the city, and encamped without the Colline 
gate. Hannibal, who now lay beyond the Anio, only three 
miles from the city, advanced with two thousand horse as 
near as the temple of Hercules, in order to view it. Fulvius 
ordered the Roman horse to charge, and the consuls at the 
same time directed a body of twelve hundred Numidian de- 
serters who were on the Aventine to come down to the 
Esquilise. The people who were on the Capitol, seeing 
them, thought the Aventine was taken, and the consternation 
that prevailed is not to be described. 

Next day Hannibal offered battle, but just as the two ar- 
mies were drawn out there came on a violent storm of rain 
and hail which separated them ; the very same thing occur- 
red the following day. As soon as they returned to their 
camps the sky cleared, and Hannibal, if is said, seeing the 
hand of heaven in it, resolved to retire. It is also said, that ' 
he was moved thereto by intelligence of troops having actu- 
ally left the city at this time for the army in Spain, and of 
the very ground on which he was encamped being sold, and 
having brought its full value, — all which proved to him that 
Rome was not to be conquered,* He then, it is added, in 

If these are not the fictions of Roman vanity, they were mere 
rhodomontades or artifices to keep up the spirits of the people. 



SCIPIO IN SPAIN. 229 

derision called for an auctioneer, and desired him to put up 
and sell the bankers' shops round the Forum. He moved 
thence to the river Tutia, six miles from the city, then pil- 
laged the temple of Feronia near Capenum, passed rapidly 
throiiorh the Sabine and Marsian countries,* and thence to 
the extremity of Bruttium, in the hopes of surprising Rhe- 
gium. 

On the return of Fulvius to the camp before Capua, the 
Campanians, hopeless of relief, agreed to an unconditional 
surrender. Twenty-eight of the principal senators having 
partaken of a splendid supper at the house of Vibius Vir- 
rius, the chief author of the revolt, took poison to escape 
the vengeance of the Romans. Seventy of the remaining 
senators were put to death, others were imprisoned in vari- 
ous places, the rest of the people sold for slaves, the town 
and its territory confiscated to the Roman state. 

A part of the besieging army was immediately embarked 
for Spain under C. Claudius Nero. Being joined by the 
troops there, he advanced against Hasdrubal, whom he en- 
closed in a valley ; but the Carthaginian, by pretending to 
treat, contrived to get his troops out of it by degrees, and 
then bade defiance to the baffled Roman. 

Spain, where the chief resources of the enemy lay, was 
now of equal importance with Italy in the eyes of the Ro- 
man people, and comitia were held for appointing a procon- 
sul to take the command of the army there. No candidates 
presented themselves : the people were dejected ; when sud- 
denly P. Scipio, the son of Publius who had fallen in Spain, 
a young man of only four-and-twenty years of age, came 
forward and sought the command. It was voted to him 
unaniniously ; but soon, when the people thought of his 
age, and of the ill-fortune of his family in Spain, they be- 
gan to repent of their precipitation. Scipio then called an 
assembly, and spoke in such a manner on these points as 
completely reassured them, and changed their fears into 
confidence. 

We have already seen Scipio distinguish himself at the 
Ticinus, and, after the battle of Cannag. His was destined 
to be one of the greatest names in Roman story. To the 
advantages of nature he joined such arts as were calculated 
to raise him in the eyes of the people. From the day on 
which he assumed the virile toga, he never did any thing 

* According to the historian Ccelius (Liv. xxvi. 11) this was Han- 
nibal's route to, not from Rome. 

20 



230 HISTORY OF ROME. 

either public or private without first ascending the Capitol, 
entering the temple, and sitting there for some time alone. 
Hence an opinion spread among the vulgar that, like Alex- 
ander the Great, he vv^as of divine origin, and some even 
talked of a huge serpent that used to be seen in his 
mother's chamber, and vv^hich always vanished when any 
one entered. These things Scipio never either affirmed or 
denied, and thus enjoyed the advantage of the popular be- 
lief As a man, a statesman, and a general, his deeds will 
best display his character. 

Having received an additional force of ten thousand foot 
and one thousand horse, with M. Junius Silanus as propras- 
tor under him, Scipio sailed for Spain. He landed at Em- 
poriae, and having gone thence to Tarraco, held a meeting 
of the deputies of the allies; he then visited the troops in 
their quarters, and bestowed great praises on them for their 
gallant conduct. To the brave Marcius he showed the most 
marked favor. As it was now late in the year, he returned 
to Tarraco for the winter. 

In Greece, this year, M. Valerius Laevinus formed a treaty 
of alliance with the JStolians against king Philip. 

While Lasvinus was absent in Greece, he was chosen con- 
sul with Marcellus for the ensuing year. The army was re- 
duced to twenty-one legions, by discharging those who had 
served a long time. On the proposal of Lsevinus, when 
pay was not to be had for the seamen, and private persons 
murmured at being called on to supply rowers as before, 
the senators set the example, in which they were followed 
by all orders, of giving their plate and jewels for the service 
of the state; and an abundant supply was thus obtained. 

Early in the spring (542) Scipio set out from Tarraco, 
and crossed the Ebro at the head of an army of twenty- 
five thousand foot and two thousand five hundred horse. 
The fleet under C. Laelius, having arrived at the mouth of 
that river, sailed thence along the coast, Laelius alone know- 
ing its destination; and it entered the port of New Carthage 
just as the army appeared before the walls. Scipio had re- 
solved to open the campaign by the siege of this important 
town, where all the money, arms, and stores of the enemy 
lay ; and, what was of still more consequence, where the 
hostages of the native princes were kept.* 

The town of New Carthage was thus situated. On the 

* This siege is related by Polybius, lib. x. 



TAKING OF NEW CARTHAGE. 231 

east coast of Spain a bay, somewhat more than five hundred 
paces wide, runs for about the same length into the land ; a 
small island at its mouth shelters it from every wind but 
the south-east. At the bottom of the bay an elevated pen- 
insula advances, on which the town was built. The sea is 
deep on the east and south side of it ; on the west, and 
partly on the north, it is so shallow as to resemble a marsh, 
varying in depth with the tide. An isthmus, two hundred 
and fifty paces long, led from the town to the main land. 

Scipio, having secured his camp in the rear, attempted to 
take the town by escalade on the land side, but the ladders 
proved too short, and the walls being vigorously defended, 
he sounded a retreat. After a little time he ordered those 
who had not been engaged to take the ladders and renew 
the attack. It was now midday, and the retiring sea, 
combined with a strong wind from the north, had rendered 
the marsh quite shallow. Scipio, learning this circumstance, 
represented it as a visible interference of the gods, and 
ordered a party of five hundred men to take Neptune as 
their leader, and wade through the marsh to the town. 
They easily accomplished this task ; and as the wall on that 
side was low and without guards, they penetrated into the 
town, and rushing to the gate, on the side where the rest of 
the army was making its attack, forced it open. The wall 
was now scaled at all points; the soldiers poured in and 
slaughtered all they met, till the citadel surrendered, when 
orders were given to cease from the carnage. 

Thus was New Carthage taken in one day. The quantity 
of naval and military stores and of the precious metals 
found in it was immense. The hostages were numerous ; 
some accounts said three hundred, others seven hundred 
and twenty-five ; and Scipio, having learned from them to 
what states they belonged, sent to them to desire them to 
come and receive their hostages. The wife of Mandonius, 
the brother of Indibilis, who was one of them, then came 
and besouaht him to have a due regard for the honor of 
the daughters of Indibilis and other noble maidens who 
were among the hostages, and the young hero gave them in 
charge to an officer of well-known honor and integrity. 

Among the captives was a maiden of distinguished beauty. 
When led by the soldiers before the conqueror, he inquired 
who and whence she was ; and finding, among other things, 
that she was betrothed to a Celtiberian prince, named Al- 
lucius, he sent to summon her parents and her lover. On 



232 HISTORY OF ROME. 

their arrival he first spoke with Allucius, and assured him 
that the maiden, while in his hands, had been treated with 
the same respect as if she had been in her father's house. 
In return, he asked him to become the friend of the Roman 
people. The prince grasped his hand, and with tears as- 
sured him of his gratitude. The parents and relatives of 
the maiden were then called in, and finding that she was 
to be released without ransom, they pressed Scipio to receive 
as a gift the gold they had brought. He yielded to their 
instances; the gold was laid at his feet; he then called 
Allucius, and desired him to take it as an addition to his 
bride's dower.* The grateful Spaniard on his return home 
extolled the magnanimity of Scipio to the skies, and having 
raised a body of one thousand four hundred horse came 
and joined him shortly after. Scipio sent Laelius home with 
the prisoners and tidings of his success, and then led his 
troops back to Tarraco. 

The consul Marcellus had meantime recovered the town 
of Salapia in Apulia, and taken by storm two Samnite towns. 
But the proconsul Cn, Fulvius, venturing to give battle to 
Hannibal near Herdonia, sustained a total defeat. Himself 
and eleven tribunes, and seven thousand — or, according to 
some, thirteen thousand — men, fell in the action. Mar- 
cellus hastened and engaged Hannibal at Numistro in Lu- 
cania; the battle, which lasted all through the day, w^as 
indecisive ; Hannibal theii retired by night into Apulia, 
whither Marcellus followed him, but nothing of moment 
occurred. 

An embassy came at this time from Syphax to form a 
friendship with the Roman people. It was received with 
great favor, and envoys bearing gifts sent back with it. 
Two ambassadors were also sent to Egypt to renew the 
friendship with the king of that country. 

The consuls of the following year (543) were d. Fabius 
Maximus and Q,. Fulvius Flaccus. Fabius, being resolved to 

* This is told in a much less romantic manner by Polybius. He says 
that some youno- Romans brought the maiden to Scipio. He thanked 
them, and said that nothing- could be more agreeable to him if he 
were a private person than such a gift, but that liis office of general 
did not allow him to accept it. He then sent for her father, and 
giving her to him desired him to match her with whichever of the 
citizens he preferred. Polybius, who omits no occasion of extolling 
the Scipios, could hardly have known any thing of the Pr'ince Allu- 
cius. Indeed, in the latter case, the maiden must have been a hostage, 
which lessens Scipio's merit. 



RETAKING OF TARENTUM. 233 

reduce Tarentum if possible, besought his colleague and Mar- 
cellus to keep Hnnnibal in occupation ; and Marcellus, who 
deemed himself alone able to cope Avith that great general 
gladly took the field. They came to an engagement near 
Canusium, which was terminated by night. Next day it was 
renewed, and the Romans were defeated with the loss of two 
thousand seven hundred men. Marcellus, having severely 
rebuked and punished his men, led them out again the fol- 
lowing day, and after a bloody conflict they remained victo- 
rious. The loss of the enemy is said to have been eight thou- 
sand slain and five elephants, that of the Romans three thou- 
sand slain and a great number wounded. Hannibal retired 
thence to Bruttium. 

Fabius, on coming to Tarentum, fixed his camp at the 
mouth of the harbor, and prepared to assail it by machines 
worked on ship-board, as Marcellus had done at Syracuse; 
but treachery enabled him to take the town with less hazard. 
The garrison was composed of Bruttians, left there by Hanni- 
bal, and its commander was in love with the sister of a man 
in the army of Fabius. This man, with the consul's consent, 
went into the town as a deserter, and by means of his sister 
induced the Bruttian to betray it. On the appointed night 
the trumpets sounded from the ships, the citadel, and camp, 
as for a general assault ; and Fabius, who had secretly gone 
round with a select body of troops to the east side, was ad- 
mitted over the wall by the Bruttians. The town was speed- 
ily won : the booty was immense ; but Fabius abstained from 
taking the pictures and statues, which nearly equalled those 
of Syracuse in number and value. Hannibal, who was has- 
tening to its relief, on hearing that it was taken, said, *' The 
Romans have their Hannibal. We have lost Tarentum in 
the same way that we gained it," 

Scipio, having spent the winter in forming alliances with 
the native princes, crossed the Ebro early in the spring of 
this year. Near the town of Bascula he found Hannibal's 
brother, Hasdrubal, strongly encamped on an eminence, with 
the river Tagus in his rear. But the valor of the Roman 
soldiers led by Scipio overcame all obstacles, and Hasdrubal 
was routed with the loss of eight thousand men slain, and 
twelve thousand taken in his camp. Among these last was 
a youth, the nephew of Masinissa the Numidian, whom 
Scipio treated with great kindness, and sent safe to his uncle. 
In imitation of Hannibal's policy, he gave their liberty to all 

20 * D D 



234 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the Spaniards, but sold the Africans for slaves. He then 
returned to Tarraco. 

The consuls of the ensuing year, (544,) Marcellus and T. 
Quinctius Crispinus, were joined in command against Han- 
nibal. CrispiuLis, having jnade an ineffectual effort to take 
Locri, proceeded to Apulia to join his colleague, and the two 
consuls encamped about three miles asunder, between Venusia 
and Bantia. Hannibal came from Bruttium, and took up a po- 
sition near them. There was an eminence covered with wood 
between his camp and those of the Romans, and expecting 
that the latter would seek to occupy it, he sent in the night 
some of his Numidians to lie in ambush on it. The general 
cry in the Roman camp was to secure this hill, lest Hannibal 
should get possession of it ; and to comply with the wishes 
of their men the consuls themselves set out with a party of 
two hundred and twenty horse to explore it. When they had 
gone a little way up the hill they were suddenly assailed on 
all sides by the Numidians, and Marcellus was killed ; Cris- 
pinus escaped badly wounded. Hannibal instantly occupied 
the height, and Crispinus retired the following night and en- 
camped in the mountains. The Punic general gave honor- 
able sepulture to the body of his rival ; but having gotten 
his ring, he resolved to derive what advantage he could from 
it, and he wrote in his name to the people of Salapia, by a de- 
serter, to say that he would come thither the following night, 
Crispinus, however, had prudently sent to all the towns to in- 
form them of his colleague's death, and to warn them against 
letters sealed with his ring. The attempt on Salapia, there- 
fore miscarried, and Hannibal returned to Bruttium, where 
he forced the Romans to raise the siege of Locri. 

While Hannibal was thus engaged, his brother Hasdrubal 
was on his march from Spain to join him. After the victories 
gained by Scipio, and the influence he had obtained over the 
minds of the natives, the Carthaginians began to consider 
their cause in that country as- nearly hopeless; and, as Han- 
nibal had long been urgent for succors, it was resolved that 
Hasdrubal should lead an army into Italy, He was prepar- 
ing to do so at the time when he sustained the defeat from 
Scipio above related; but as he had before the battle placed 
his elephants and treasure in safety, he retired to the north 
coast of Spain, and there enlisted a large body of Celtibe- 
rians ; and as Scipio had sent troops to guard the eastern 
passage of the Pyrenees, he entered Gaul at the west side, 



MARCH OF HASDRUBAL. 235 

and directed his march through Aquitania for the Alps. He 
had sent to raise troops in Liguria, and eight thousand Ligu- 
rians were ready to join him when he appeared in Italy. 
The Gauls of the Alps, grown familiar with the passage of 
strangers, offered no opposition ; the asperities of the road 
had been removed by his brother, and he descended into the 
plain of the Po without having suffered any losses ; but in- 
stead of passing on to join Hannibal, he consumed the time, 
which was of so much value, in besieging the strong colony 
of Placentia. 

The consuls elected for this year (545) were C. Claudius 
Nero and M. Livius Salinator ; the former was opposed to 
Hannibal, the latter advanced to meet Hasdrubal. Claudius, 
having selected forty thousand foot and two thousand five 
hundred horse out of the troops in the south, took his post at 
Venusia ; Hannibal collected his forces from their quarters, 
advanced to Grumentum in Lucania, whither Claudius also 
came ; and the two armies were encamped about a mile and a 
half asunder. An engagement, in which it is said that Han- 
nibal was defeated, was fought in the plain which separated 
the camps, after which Hannibal, as was his wont, decamped 
in the night. Claudius followed, and coming up with him 
at Venusia gave him a slight defeat. Hannibal went thence 
to Metapontum, then back again to Venusia, and on to Ca- 
nusium, still followed by Claudius. 

Meantime Hasdrubal, having given over the siege of Pla- 
centia, was advancing southwards. He wrote to his brother 
to desire him to meet him in Umbria; but his letters fell into 
the hands of Claudius, who, deeming the time to be come 
for venturing on something extraordinary, sent the letters to 
the senate, informing them of what he intended to do, and 
directing them how to provide for the safety of the city in 
case of any mishap. He then despatched orders to the peo- 
ple of the country through which he intended to pass to have 
provisions, horses, and beasts of burden prepared : and se- 
lectinof six thousand foot and one thousand horse, desired them 
to be ready at night for an attempt on the nearest Punic gar- 
rison. At night he led them in the direction of Picenum, and 
when at a sufficient distance, informed them that it was his 
intention to go and join his colleague. Every where, as they 
passed, the people came forth to congratulate them and pray for 
their success; supplies poured in in abundance ; the soldiers 
marched day and night, taking barely the necessary repose. 

Claudius had sent on to inquire of his colleague whether 



236 HISTORY OF ROME. 

he would wish them to join him by day or by night, and 
whether they should enter his camp, or encamp separately. 
Livius desired them to enter his camp in secret, and by 
night ; and he arranged that the officers should receive the 
officers, the men the men, of Nero's army into their tents, 
so that the camp need not be enlarged, and the enemy might 
be thus kept in ignorance of their arrival. As Livius was 
encamped near the colony of Sena, about half a mile from 
the Punic camp, Nero halted in the neighboring mountains 
till night came, and he then entered the consul's camp. A 
council of war was held next day, at which the praetor L. 
Porcius, who had followed Hasdrubal along the hills, and who 
was now encamped near the consul, assisted. Most were for 
a delay of a few days to rest Nero's men, but he himself was 
decidedly against this course, lest Hannibal, having learned 
how he had been deceived should be enabled to join his 
brother. It was therefore resolved to give battle at once. 

The suspicions of Hasdrubal were aroused when he saw 
the old shields of a part of the Roman soldiers, and marked 
that their horses were leaner than usual, and the number of 
the men was increased. He sent some down to where the 
Romans used to water, to observe if any of them were sun- 
burnt as off a journey ; and others to go round their camp, 
and discover if it had been enlarged, and if the trumpet 
was blown twice or only once. They reported that it was 
blown twice in one camp, once in the other ; and though 
they had remarked no change in the size, the wary general 
became convinced thai the other consul must be there, and 
he began to fear that his brother had sustained a decisive 
defeat; still, thinking his letters might have been intercept- 
ed, he resolved to decamp in the night and fall back into 
Gaul, and there wait till he had some sure tidings of Han- 
nibal. He therefore set out early in the night ; but his 
guides made their escape, and he vainly sought a ford in the 
river Metaurus, which increased in depth as it approached 
the sea. In the morning the Roman army came up, and 
Hasdrubal could no longer decline an engagement. 

The Roman army consisted of 45,000 men. Livius led 
the left, Nero the right wing, Porcius the centre, Hasdru- 
bal's forces exceeded 60,000 men ; he placed his Spanish 
troops, himself at their head, on the right ; the Gauls, pro- 
tected by a hill, on the left; the Ligurians in the centre, 
with the elephants in their front. The conflict between 
Livius and Hasdrubal was severe. Claudius, finding that 



DEFEAT OF HASDRUBAL ON THE METAURUS. 237 

the liill prevented him from attacking the Gauls, took some 
coliorts round in the rear and fell on the left flank of the 
Spaniards and Ligurians, who, being thus assailed on all 
sides, gave way ; the Gauls were also attacked, and easily 
routed ; the elephants were mostly killed by their own dri- 
vers. Hasdrubal, who had performed all the parts of an 
able general, seeing the battle lost, spurred his horse, and 
rushing into the midst of a Roman cohort, died as became 
the son of Hamilcar and the brother of Hannibal. This 
victory nearly compensated for Cannae ; 56,000 men, we are 
told, lay dead; 5400 were taken : the loss of the victors was 
8000 men.* 

That very night Nero set out, and reached his camp on 
the sixth day, bearing with him the head of Hasdrubal, 
which, with a refinement of barbarity, he caused to be flung 
to the guards of Hannibal's camp, and he sent some of his 
prisoners in with the intelligence. Hannibal, struck with 
both the public and private calamity, cried, " I see the doom 
of Carthage ; " and instantly removed to the extremity of 
Bruttium, being resolved to act merely^on the defensive. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SUCCESSES OF SCIPIO IN SPAIN. MUTINY IN HIS ARMY. 

CARTHAGINIANS EXPELLED FROM SPAIN. SCIPIo's RE- 
TURN TO ROME. HIS PREPARATIONS FOR INVADING AFRI- 
CA. INVASION OF AFRICA. HORRIBLE DESTRUCTION OF 

A PUNIC ARMY. DEFEAT OF THE CARTHAGINIANS. AT- 
TACK ON THE ROMAN FLEET. DEATH OF SOPHONISBA. 

RETURN OF HANNIBAL. INTERVIEW OF HANNIBAL AND 

SCIPIO. BATTLE OF ZAMA. END OF THE WAR. 

The war in Italy may now be regarded as terminated ; in 
Greece also little of importance occurred ; Spain alone at- 
tracts attention. In this country, Hasdrubal the son of Gisco, 
and Hanno and Mago sustained the Punic cause. Against 
these last two, who had combined their forces, Scipio sent his 

* L vy, xxvii. 49. Polybius (xi. 3) makes the slain on one side 
10,000, on the other 2000 men. 



238 HISTORY OF ROME. 

legate Silanus, who defeated them and took Hanno prisoner ; 
he also sent his brother Lucius Scipio to lay siege to a 
strong town named Oringis, and after a stout defence it was 
taken. 

The following year (546) Hasdrubal and Mago, having 
raised an army of fifty thousand foot and four thousand five 
hundred horse, took their position at a p4ace named Silpia 
in Boetica, and prepared to give the Romans battle. Scipio 
moved from Tarraco to Castulo, and thence to Baecula, near 
which he encamped. His army now amounted to forty-five 
thousand men. The Punic army came and encamped near 
him, and for several successive days they stood in array 
without venturing to engage. At length Scipio, having 
changed the disposition of his forces without the knowledge 
of the enemy, brought them to an engagement, and com- 
pletely routed them. Most of their Spanish troops went 
over to the Romans, and Mago, decamping in the night, 
hastened away to Gades. The Romans pursued, and the 
sword and desertion reduced his army to nought. Scipio 
then returned to Tarraco, leaving Silanus in the vicinity of 
Gades. 

Masinissa took occasion at this time to have a secret 
interview with Silanus, in which he expressed his desire to 
be on friendly terms with the Romans. Scipio, as the Punic 
power was now at an end in Spain, began to think of trans- 
ferring the war to Africa. He therefore sent L^lius with 
presents to Syphax ; and, at the. desire of this prince to hold 
a personal conference with him, he himself crossed over 
to Africa. Hasdrubal happened to enter the same port 
a little time before him, and the two hostile generals were 
placed on the same couch at the entertainment given them 
by the king. Having formed a treaty of alliance with Sy- 
phax, Scipio returned to New Carthage. 

After the death of the two Scipios, the cities of Illiturgis 
and Castulo had gone over to the enemy, and the people of 
the former had added to their defection the guilt of mur- 
dering the Romans who had sought refuge with them. The 
time was now come for taking the loner-meditated ven- 
geance : Scipio sent L. Marcius with one third of the army 
against Castulo, while he himself sat down before Illiturgis 
with the remainder. The Illiturgians, knowing they had no 
mercy to look for, made a most obstinate defence; but the 
African deserters in the Roman service, having secretly 
scaled a part which, from its height, was left unguarded, the 



SUCCESSES OF SCIPIO IN SPAIN. 239 

town was taken. Men, women, and children were slaugh- 
tered without mercy or distinction ; the town was burnt, and 
all traces of it effaced. The fate of Castulo was less severe, 
as a party there betrayed the town and the Punic garrison 
into the hands of the Romans. Marcius then crossed the 
Baetis, and laid siege to a town named Astapa, whose inhab- 
itants lived mostly by plunder. Their town was not strong, 
and they knew that they had no favor to expect. They 
resolved to perish nobly ; and collecting in their market all 
their valuable property, they piled it up, and making their 
women and children sit on the pile, they heaped wood and 
fagots around them. They set fifty armed youths to guard 
it, charging them, when they saw the town on the point of 
being taken, to destroy all there with the sword and fire. 
They then opened the gates and rushed forth ; they drove off 
the horse and light troops : the legions had to come out 
against them, and at length, overwhelmed by numbers, they 
all perished. The fifty young men then drew their swords, 
slaucrhtered the women and children, threw their bodies on 
the pile, set fire to it, and flung themselves into the flames. 
Such was the end of Astapa. 

Some time after, Scipio happened to fall sick, and the 
Spanish princes Indibilis and Mandonius immediately seized 
arms and wasted the lands of the Roman allies, A mutiny 
also broke out in the Roman camp at Sucro, (Xucar.) The 
men complained of being detained in Spain, and of their 
pay being withheld ; and on hearing a false rumor of the 
death of Scipio, they drove away their officers and gave the 
command to two common soldiers. But when they learned 
he was still alive, their courage fell, and they consented, 
seeing they had no chance of being able to resist, to go to 
New Carthage, and submit themselves to their general, with 
whose leniency they were well acquainted. They entered the 
town at sunset, and saw all the other troops preparing to 
march that night against the Spaniards. This sight filled 
them with joy, as they thought they should now have their 
general in their power. The other troops marched out at 
the fourth watch of the night ; but they had orders to halt 
outside the town, and all the gates were secured. 

In the morning Scipio mounted his tribunal in the market, 
and summoned the mutineers before him. They came pre- 
pared with fierce mien and insolent words, hoping to bully 
him ; but when they saw his healthy looks, and found that the 
other 'troops had reentered the town and were now surround- 



240 HISTORY OF ROME. 

iijg them, while they were un armed, their spirits sank. Scipio 
sat in silence till he heard that the ringleaders, who had been 
secured in the night, were at hand and that all was ready. He 
then rose and addressed them, reproaching them with their 
mutiny, and concluded by offering pardon to all but their 
leaders. The soldiers behind clashed their swords on their 
shields; the crier's voice was heard proclaiming the names of 
the condemned ; they were dragged forth naked, thirty-five 
in number, bound to the stake, scourged and beheaded, their 
comrades in guilt not daring even to utter a groan. The 
mutineers were made to renew their military oath, and they 
then received their arrears of pay. 

When Scipio had reduced his troops to obedience, he took 
the field against Indibilis and Mandonius, and having given 
them a decisive defeat, granted them peace on their giving 
a large suui of money for the pay of the Roman army. lie 
then proceeded toward Gades to meet Masinissa, who was 
anxious to have a personal conference with him. 

The Numidian prince had been, as we have seen, for 
sometime wavering in his faith to Carthage. It is said* 
that injured love was the motive that now decided him to 
revolt. He had been educated at Carthage, where Hasdru- 
bal, the son of Gisco, pleased with his noble qualities, had 
promised him the hand of his daughter Sophonisba, the 
most lovely, accomplished, and highly endowed maiden of her 
time. He had attended his future father-in-law to Spain, 
and shown himself worthy of the honor designed him. But 
Syphax was also an admirer of- the fair Sophonisba, and the 
desire of withdrawing this powerful prince from his alliance 
with the Romans overcame all sense of justice and honor 
in the minds of the Carthaginian senate, and, as it would 
seem, of Hasdrubal himself, and Sophonisba was given to 
him as the condition of his becoming the ally of Carthage. 
Masinissa, stung by jealousy, resolved to join the Romans ; 
and pretending to Mago that the horses were injured by the 
confinement in the island (Isla de Leon) in which Gades lay, 
he obtained his permission to pass over on a plundering ex- 
cursion to the main land. He here had an interview with 
Scipio, and pledged liimself to the cause of Rome. 

Orders now came from Carthage for Mago to collect all 
his troops and ships, and sail to the north of Italy, and rais- 
ing there an army of Ligurians and Gauls, to endeavor to 

* Appian, Pun. viii. 37. Zonaras, ix. 11. 



SCIPIO'S RETURN TO ROME. 241 

join his brother Hannibal. Money was sent him for this 
purpose, and to this he added what was in the treasury and 
temples at Gades, and the forced contributions of the citizens. 
In consequence of this, when, after the failure of a nocturnal 
attempt on New Carthage, he returned to Gades, he found 
the gates closed against him, and on his retiring, the city 
was surrendered to the Romans. As it was now the end 
of autumn, he took up his winter quarters in the lesser of 
the Baleares, (Minorca.) 

Scipio, having thus in five years achieved the conquest of 
Spain, now returned to Rome. The senate gave him au- 
dience, according to custom, at the temple of Bellona, with- 
out the city, and he gave a full account of his exploits. 
He had some hopes of being allowed to triumph ; but as this 
honor had hitherto been restricted to those who were magis- 
trates, he did not urge his claim. At the ensuing comitia, 
he was unanimously chosen consul for the next year (547) 
with P. Licinius Crassus, who was at this time great 
pontiff. 

Aware of the feeble hold which the Carthaginians had on 
the affections of their African subjects and allies, and recol- 
lecting the ease with which Agathocles and Regulus had 
brought them to the brink of ruin, Scipio was resolved, if 
possible, to transfer the war to their own shores. He was 
therefore desirous of having Africa assigned for his province, 
and he made no secret of his intention of appealing to the 
people if refused by the senate. Thelatter body were highly 
offended ; some were envious of Scipio, others really dubious 
of the policy of invading Africa while Hannibal was in Italy. 
Among these last was Q,. Fabius Maximus, who spoke at 
great length against Scipio's plan. Scipio replied ; Q,. Ful- 
vius then demanded of him if he would leave the decision 
of the provinces to the Fathers; Scipio's answer was ambig- 
uous ; Fulvius appealed to the tribunes, and they declared that 
they would intercede. Scipio then demanded a day to con- 
sult with his colleague, and it ended by the decision being 
left to the Fathers, and their assigning Bruttium to one 
consul and Sicily to the other, with permission to pass 
over to Africa if he deemed it for the advantage of the 
state. 

The senate, being thus obliged to give way, vented their 
spleen by refusing Scipio leave to levy troops, and by refus- 
ing also to be at the expense of fitting out the fleet he might 
require. He did not press them ; he only asked to be al- 

21 E E 



242 HISTORY OF ROME. 

lowed to take volunteers and free-will offerings. This could 
not well be refused : the various peoples of Etruria then con- 
tributed the materials for building and equipping ships ; they 
also gave corn and arms ; the Umbrians, Sabines, and the 
Marsian League sent numerous volunteers ; the Camertians a 
complete cohort fully armed. Forty-five days after the trees 
for the purpose had been felled, a fleet of thirty ships, fully 
equipped, was afloat. Scipio then passed over to Sicily, 
where he regimented his volunteers, keeping three hundred 
youths, the flower of them, about him, unarmed and ignorant 
of their destination. He soon after selected three hundred 
young Sicilians of good family, and directed them to be with 
him on a certain day, fully equipped to serve as cavalry. 
They came ; but the idea of service was death to these ef- 
feminate youths and to their parents and relatives. Scipio 
then offered to provide them substitutes if they did not wish 
to serve. They gladly embraced his offer : he appointed the 
three hundred youths to take their place ; the Sicilians had 
to supply them with horses and arms, and have them taught 
to ride; and thus Scipio acquired without any expense a valu- 
able body of horse. He then draughted the best soldiers from 
the legions there, especially those who had served under Mar- 
cellus, and went to Syracuse for the winter. Leelius passed 
with a part of the fleet over to Africa, and landing at Hippo 
Regius plundered the adjacent country. He was here joined 
by Masinissa, who having been driven out of his paternal 
kingdom by Syphax, was lurking with a few horsemen about 
the Lesser Syrtis. Lselius then returned with his booty to 
Sicily. 

In the course of this summer Mago sailed from the Baleares, 
and landed with 12,000 foot and 2000 horse at Genua, on 
the coast of Liguria; and when Laelius had appeared in Af- 
rica the Punic senate sent him a reenforcement of 6000 foot, 
800 horse, seven elephants, and a large sum of money, with 
directions to lose no time in hiring Gauls and Ligurians, and 
to endeavor to effect a junction with Hannibal as soon as 
possible, and thus give the Romans employment at home. 
In SpaiUj Indibilis and Mandonius excited some of the native 
peoples to arms against the Romans ; but they were defeated 
and obliged to sue for peace. In Greece, a peace was con- 
cluded with the king of Macedonia. 

The consulate of Scipio having expired, his command, as 
was usual, was prolonged for the ensuing year, (548,) and 
the eyes of all men were turned to the fine army which he 



INVASION OF AFRICA. 243 

had assembled for the conquest of Africa. Authorities dif- 
fer respecting the number of his forces, but they could hardly 
have been less than thirty-five thousand men, horse and foot. 
They embarked, taking with them provisions for forty-five 
days; the transports sailed in the centre; on the right were 
twenty ships of war under Scipio himself and his brother 
Lucius, and an equal number on the left under Laelius and 
M. Fortius Cato the quaestor; each transport carried two 
lights, each ship of war one, the general's ship three; the 
pilots were directed to steer for the Emporia on the Syrtes. 
The fleet left Lilybaeum at daybreak, and next morning it 
was off* the Hermaic cape. Scipio's pilot proposed to land 
there, but he directed him to keep to the left. A fog however 
came on, and the wind fell ; during the night a contrary 
wind sprang up, and at dawn they found themselves off" the 
Cape of Apollo, on the west side of the bay of Carthage, not 
far from Utica, and here they landed and encamped. 

The consternation was great in Carthage when it was known 
that the formidable Scipio was actually landed in Africa. 
Orders were sent to Hasdrubal, who was away collecting troops 
and elephants, to hasten to the defence of his country, and 
envoys were despatched to Syphax for a similar purpose. Has- 
drubal's son Hanno was directed to take a station with four 
thousand horse about fifteen miles from the Roman camp to 
protect the open country ; but Masinissa, who was now with 
Scipio, drew him to where the Roman horse stood covered 
by some hills, and nearly all his men were slain or taken. 
He was himself made a prisoner, and afterwards exchanged 
for Masinissa's mother. Scipio and Masinissa now laid the 
country waste without opposition, and they set at liberty 
a great number of Roman captives who were working as 
slaves in the fields. They laid siege to a large town named 
Lacha ; the scaling-ladders were placed, when the people sent, 
offering to surrender ; Scipio ordered the trumpet to sound 
the recall : the soldiers heeded it not, the town was stormed, 
and a general slaughter commenced. To punish his, men, 
Scipio deprived them of all their booty, and he put to death 
three of the most guilty tribunes. Hasdrubal, who was now 
at hand with an army of 20,000 foot, 7000 horse, 140 ele- 
phants, made an attack on the Romans, but was driven off 
with the loss of 5000 slain and 1800 prisoners. 

Scipio, wishing to have a strong town as a place of arms 
and for winter quarters, now laid siege to Utica : he had 
brought all the necessary machines from Sicily ; but the Uti- 



244 HISTORY OF ROME. 

cans defended themselves gallantly and after assailing the town 
for forty days he was forced to give over the siege. He with- 
drevi^, and fixed his winter camp on a rocky peninsula, which 
ran out into the sea, to the east of that town. Hasdrubal 
encamped in the vicinity, as also did Syphax, the former with 
30,000 foot and 3000 horse, the latter with 50,000 foot and 
10,000 horse, but they made no attempt on the Roman 
camp. 

During the winter Scipio entered into negotiations with 
Syphax, in hopes of detaching him from the Carthaginians,* 
but the Numidian would not hear of revolt; he proposed 
that the one party should evacuate Italy, the other Africa, 
and both remain as they were. Scipio at first would not 
listen to these terms ; but when some of those whom he had 
sent to Syphax told him how the huts in the Punic camp 
were formed of wood and leaves, while those of the Numid- 
ians were of reeds, or they lay on simple leaves, and many of 
them without the camp, he conceived the horrible project of 
setting fire to both the camps in the night, and massacring 
the troops amidst the flames. He feigned therefore to hearken 
to the proposal of Syphax; messengers went constantly to and 
fro, and even remained for days on each side; and Scipio took 
care to send with them some of his most intelligent soldiers, 
disguised as slaves, who were to observe the position and 
form of the camps. 

When the spring came, (559,) Scipio, having gained all 
the knowledge he required, launched his ships and put his 
machines aboard as if to renew his attacks on Utica, and he 
fortified an eminence near the town which he had occupied 
before, and placed on it a body of two thousand men, osten- 
sively to act against the town, but in reality to prevent an 
attempt on his camp by the garrison during his absence. 
He then sent envoys to Syphax to know if the Carthaginians 
had made up their minds to agree to the terms arranged 
between them, and the envoys had orders not to return 
without a categorical answer. Syphax, now quite certain 
of the Roman's sincerity, sent to Hasdrubal, and receiving 
a perfectly satisfactory reply, joyfully dismissed Scipio's 
envoys. But to his great mortification others came almost 
immediately, to say that Scipio himself was well content to 
make peace on these terms, but that his council would not 
on any account accede to them. This was all done by Scipio 
in order to clear himself from the guilt of breach of truce. 

* Polybius, xly. 1 — 5. Livy, xxx. 3 — 6. 



HORRIBLE DESTRUCTION OF A PUNIC ARMY. 245 

in making an attack while negotiations for peace were 
going on. 

Syphax and Hasdrubal, little suspecting the atrocious 
design of the Roman general, having consulted together, 
agreed to offer him battle at once. But Scipio about mid- 
day assembled his ablest and most trusty tribunes, and 
having communicated to them his plan, (which had hitherto 
been a most profound secret,) directed them, when the 
trumpets sounded as usual after supper for setting the guards, 
to lead their men out of the camp. He then sent for those 
who had acted as spies, and examined them as to the state 
of the enemies' camps in the presence of Masinissa. At 
night, when all was ready he set out, at the end of the first 
watch, and reaching the hostile camps by the end of the third 
watch, he divided his forces, giving one half of the soldiers 
and all the Numidians to Lgelius and Masinissa, with orders 
to attack the camp of Syphax, while he himself led the rest 
of the army against that of Hasdrubal. 

Laelius and Masinissa having divided their troops, the 
latter went and stationed his men at all the avenues of the 
camp, while the former set fire to it. The flames, which 
spread rapidly, roused Syphax and his people from their 
sleep, and having no doubt that the fire was accidental, they 
endeavored, naked as they were, to get out of the camp ; but 
several were burnt to death, others trampled down in the 
rush-out, and those who got out were cut to pieces by Mas- 
inissa's soldiers. Those in the other camp, when they saw 
the flames, also took them to be accidental, and some has- 
tened to give assistance, while the rest came and stood out- 
side of the camp gazing on the conflagration. All were 
alike fallen on and slaughtered by the Romans, who at the 
same time set fire to their camp. Here also the flames 
spread in all directions ; in both camps men, horses, and 
beasts of burden were to be seen, some perishing in the 
flames, others rushing through them, and all over the plain 
naked, unarmed fugitives pursued and slaughtered by their 
ruthless foes; of so many myriads * but about 2000 foot and 
500 horse escaped, with Hasdrubal and Syphax. 

" Scipio," says Polybius, " performed many great and 
glorious actions, but, in my opinion, this was the boldest 
and most glorious he ever achieved." Yet wlfat was it in 



* According to Livv, 40,000 men perished by the frames or by the 
Rword. 

21* 



246 ' ^ HISTORY OF ROME. 

reality but a tissue of treachery, duplicity, and cruelty ? By 
a pretended negotiation the suspicions of the enemy were 
lulled to rest, and an opportunity gained for spying out their 
camps, and then they were secretly assailed and set fire to at 
the hour when all in them were asleep. Such a treacherous 
and cowardly procedure may be worthy of a leader of pirates 
or bandits, but it was surely disgraceful, at the least, to the 
general of a great republic. 

Hasdrubal fled first to a town in the vicinity, and thence 
to Carthage, where opinions were divided ; some were for 
suing for peace, others for recalling Hannibal, others for 
raising more troops, calling again on Syphax, and continuing 
the war. This last opinion prevailed. Syphax, yielding to 
the tears and entreaties of his lovely wife, and encouraged 
by the appearance of a fine body of four thousand Celtiberians 
who were just arrived, consented to make new levies, and in 
the space of thirty days a combined army of 30,000 men 
encamped on the Great Plain five days' march from Utica. 
Scipio, leaving the siege of this town, advanced to engage 
them. After three days' skirmishing a general action com- 
menced : the Roman army was drawn up with the Italian 
horse on the right, the Numidians on the left wing. The 
Celtiberians were in the centre of the opposite army, the 
Carthaginians on the right, the Numidians on the le'ft. The 
last two gave way at the first shock ; the Celtiberians fought 
nobly, and perished to the last man. After the battle Scipio 
held a council, and it was decided that Laslius and Masinissa 
should pursue Syphax, while Scipio employed himself in 
reducing the Punic towns, many of which readily surren- 
dered, for the heavy impositions which had been laid on 
them during the war had made them lukewarm in their alle- 
giance. 

In Carthage it was now resolved to send to recall Hanni- 
bal, to strengthen the defences of the city, and to send out a 
fleet to attack that of the Romans at Utica. Scipio mean- 
time advanced and occupied Tunis, a town within view of 
Carthage, at a distance of about fifteen miles. While here, 
he saw the Punic fleet putting to sea, and fearing for his own, 
Aie led his troops back to Utica. As his ships of war were 
not in a condition for fighting, being prepared for battering 
the town, he drew them up close to the shore, placing the 
transports three and four deep outside of them, with their 
masts and yards laid across them, and tied together and cov- 
ered with planks ; and he set about one thousand men to 



ATTACK ON THE ROMAN FLEET. 247 

defend them. Had the Carthaginians come up while, all was 
in confusion, they might have done much injury, but thev 
loitered so that they did not appear till the second day, and 
w^ith all their efforts they only succeeded in dragging away 
six of the transports. 

Laelius and Masinissa reached Numidia on the fifteenth 
day, and the Massylians gladly received their native prince. 
But Syphax having collected another army came and gave 
them battle, and was again defeated, and having fallen from 
his horse, that was wounded, he was made prisoner. Mas- 
inissa then pressed on for Syphax's capital, named Cirta, 
which surrendered when assured of that prince's captivity. 
Here as he entered the palace he met Sophonisba, who 
falling at his feet implored him to put her to death rather 
than give her up to the Romans. The prince's love revived, 
and as the only means of saving her from the Romans he 
resolved to espouse her that very day. The wedding was 
celebrated before the arrival of Lslius, who was highly in- 
dignant at it, and was even going to drag her from him, but 
he conceded to the tears of the prince that the decision 
should rest with Scipio. 

When Syphax was brought before Scipio he threw the 
whole blame of his change of policy on Sophonisba, and 
probably out of jealousy, assured him that her influence over 
Masinissa would produce similar effects. This sank deep in 
the mind of the politic Roman ; and, when Masinissa arrived, 
he lectured him gravely on his conduct, and insisted on his 
giving up Sophonisba. The lover burst into tears, and 
prayed to be permitted, as far as was possible, to keep his 
promise to his bride ; he then retired to his tent, and having 
given way to an agony of grief, called a trusty servant who 
kept the poison with which monarchs in those times were 
always provided, desired him to bear it to Sophonisba, and 
tell her, that unable to keep the first part of his promise he 
thus performed the second, and it was for her to act as 
became the daughter of Hasdrubal and the spouse of two 
kings. The servant hastened to Cirta. " I accept the nup- 
tial gift," said Sophonisba, "no ungrateful one, if a husband 
could give his wife nothing better. Tell him only this, that 
I should have died with more glory if I had not married on 
the eve of death." So saying she took the bowl and drained 
it.* Scipio, now relieved from his apprehensions, sought to 

* Livy, and probably Polybius, says nothing of the previous love of 
Masinissa. According to Appian, as he approached Cirta, Sophonisba 



248 HISTORY OF ROME. 

console- Masinissa ; he publicly gave him the title of Mng^ 
and, after the Roman custom, presented him with the regal 
insignia. Syphax was sent to Rome, and he died soon after 
at Tibur. The senate and people confirmed the honors 
bestowed by Scipio on Masinissa. 

Scipio now returned to Tunis, whither came an embassy 
from Carthage suing for peace, and throwing all the blame 
of the war on Hannibal. The terms he proposed were the 
withdrawal of all their troops from Italy, Gaul, Spain, and 
the islands, their giving up all their ships of war but twenty, 
delivering 590,000 measures of wheat and 200,000 of barley, 
and paying a large sum of money. He gave them three days 
to consider of them ; at the end of that time a truce was 
made to enable them to send to Rome. 

Meantime Hannibal and Mago had both been recalled. 
The latter having been worsted in a severe-fought battle in 
InsLibrian Gaul, and wounded in the thigh, was glad to leave 
Italy ; he embarked his troops ; but he died of his wound 
when off Sardinia, and several of his ships were taken by the 
Romans. Hannibal, it is said, groaned when he received 
the order to return ; and as he departed, looking back on 
the shores of Italy, where he had spent so many years, he 
cursed his own folly in not having marched for Rome after 
the victory at Cannge. This last circumstance proves that 
we have not here a true account, for Hannibal could not 
have blamed himxself for acting right ; and as he must have 
been by this time perfectly sure that under the present cir- 
cumstances the conquest of Italy was become hopeless, his 
groans, if any, were not for his recall, but for the occasion 
of it. He landed his troops at Leptis. 

The Punic envoys received a dubious answer at Rome, 
and before they returned the truce had been broken ; for a 
number of ships laden with supplies from Sicily for the Ro- 
man army, being driven into the bay of Carthage, the Car- 
thaginians seized them ; and when Scipio sent envoys to 

sent to tell him that she had been obliged to marry Syphax. Masinissa 
left her at Cirta. Scipio very roughly ordered him to give her upland 
not to attempt to deprive the Romans of a part of their booty. The 
prince then set out with some Romans as if to fetch her, and contriving 
to see her alone handed her a bowl of poison, and telling her that she 
must drink it or become a slave to the Romans, gave spurs to his horse 
and left her. She drank it: and Masinissa havinsf shown the Romans 
her dead body, buried her as a queen. See also Zonaras, ix. 13. At 
all events, Scipio's conduct was that of the politician, not of the inan 
of generous feelings. 



RETURN OF HANNIBAL. 249 

complain, they narrowly escaped personal ill treatment, and 
as they returned their vessel was attacked within view of the 
Roman camp by a Punic ship of war, and most of the crew 
slain. Notwithstanding this breach of faith, Scipio dismissed 
in safety the Punic envoys when they reached his camp on 
their return from Rome. 

The war was resumed,* (550,) and the Carthaginians, con- 
scious of wrong, resolved to strain every nerve. Hannibal 
had now advanced to Adrumetum, whither numerous volun- 
teers repaired to him, and he engaged a large body of 
Numidian cavalry. Urged then by the pressing instances of 
the people of Carthage, he advanced to Zama, a town about 
five days' march to the west of that city, whence he sent three 
spies to learn where and how the Romans were encamped. 
These spies were tal£en and led before Scipio ; but, like 
Xerxes, t he had them conducted all through his camp and 
then dismissed in safety. Struck by this conduct, which 
evinced such confidence in his own strength, Hannibal pro- 
posed a personal interview, in hopes, while his forces were 
still unimpaired, that he should be able to obtain better terms 
for his country. The Roman did not decline the interview, 
but said he would appoint the time for it to take place. He 
was joined next day by Masinissa with six thousand foot and 
four thousand horse ; and he advanced and encamped near a 
town named Naragara, whence he sent to inform Hannibal 
that he was ready to confer with him. The Punic -general 
came and encamped on a hill about four miles off; and next 
day each set out from his camp with a few horsemen, and 
then leaving their attendants at a little distance they met,- an 
interpreter alone being present. Hannibal commenced by 
expressing his wish that the one people had never gone out 
of Africa, or the other out of Ttaly, — their natural domin- 
ions. He reminded Scipio of the instability of fortune, of 
which he was himself so notable an instance, and concluded 
by offering on the part of Carthage to cede Spain and Sicily, 
Sardinia, and all the other islands to the Romans. Scipio 
commenced by attempting to justify the conduct of the Ro- 
mans in entering Sicily and Spain as the defenders of their 
allies. He dwelt on the late breach of faith at the moment 
when the Roman senate and people had consented to a peace : 

V 

* We have the narrative of Polybius (xv. 3 — 19) hence to the end 
of the war. 

t History of Greece, p. 107, 2d edit 

F F 



250 HISTORY OF ROME. 

and said that if the less advantageous terms now proposed 
were agreed to, it would be a premium on bad faith. Victory 
or unconditional submission alone remained for Carthage. 
The conference thus terminated, and each general retired to 
prepare for battle. 

At dawn the next day the two armies were drawn out for 
the conflict which was to decide the fate of Carthage. 
Never were two more eminent generals opposed to each 
other ; Hannibal the greatest, not merely of his own, but, per- 
haps of any age, Scipio inferior only to Hannibal. In num- 
ber of troops the advantage was on the side of the former,* 
but they were mostly raw levies, and only those who had 
served in Italy could vie in steadiness and discipline with the 
troops led by the Roman. 

Scipio drew up his troops in the usual manner, but instead 
of placing the maniples of the Principes opposite the inter- 
vals of those of the Hastats, he set them directly behind 
them, thus leaving open passages through his lines for the 
elephants to run through. In these intervals he placed the 
Velites, or light troops, directing them to begin the action, 
and if oppressed by the elephants to retire through the in- 
tervals to the rear, or if they could not do so to fall into the 
cross-intervals. The Italian cavalry under Laelius was sta- 
tioned on the left, Masinissa and his Numidians on the right 
wing. Hannibal placed his elephants (of which he had 
eighty) in front ; behind them his Ligurian, Gallic, Balearic, 
and Moorish mercenaries, twelve thousand in number ; after 
these the Africans and Carthaginians; and then, at the dis- 
tance of somewhat more than a furlong, the troops he had 
brought from Italy.t It was on these last that he placed his 
chief reliance ; the mercenaries were put in front to weary 
the Romans, if with nothing else, with slaughtering them; 
the Carthaginians in the middle, that they might be obliged, 
willing or not, to fight : the Punic horse were on the right, 
the Numidian on the left wing. 

Each general having encouraged his men, the battle com- 

* Appian (viii. 40,41) gives the total of the Punic force 50,000 men, 
that of the Romans 23,000 foot and 1500 horse, exclusive of the Nu- 
midians. 

f Livy makes a curious mistake here. Finding in his Polybius 
roug Jt 'Iraliaq yjy.ovrag uad^ lavrov, he renders it by " aciem Italico- 
rum militum (Bruttii plerique erant, vi ac necessitate plures, quam sua 
voluntate, dccedentem ex Italia sequuti) instruxit.^'' It is manifest from 
Polybius (xv. 11, 6 — 13) that they were his veteran troops. 



BATTLE OF ZAMA. 251 

menced with the skirmishing of the Numidian horse. Han- 
nibal then ordered the elephants to advance ; but the Romans 
blew their horns and trumpets, and some of the animals, 
terrified at the clangor, ran to the left, where they threw 
their own horse into such confusion that they could not 
stand before that of Masinissa ; the rest rushed on the Ro- 
man Velites, where they did and received much injury : at 
length, maddened by the noise and their wounds, they ran 
part through the intervals of the Roman lines, part to the 
right, where, by the confusion they caused, they rendered 
easy the victory of Lselius over the Punic horse. 

The infantry on both sides now advanced ; the three lines 
of the Romans supporting each other, while the timid Car- 
thaginians let their front line go forward alone. These mer- 
cenaries fought bravely, and killed and wounded many of the 
Romans ; but at length they w^ere forced to give way before 
the close steady orders of the Romans, and fall back on their 
second line; and enraged at the cowardice of the Africans, 
they treated them as enemies. The Carthaginians, thus as- 
sailed at the one time by the Romans and by their own 
mercenaries, gathered courage from despair, and fought with 
desperation. They threw the Hastats into confusion ; the 
Principes then advanced against them ; the slaughter of them 
and their mercenaries was immense : Hannibal would not 
allow the fugitives to mingle with his reserve, and they were 
obliged to scatter over the plain. 

The bodies and arms of the slain lay in such heaps that it 
was difficult for the Roman troops to move forward in regu- 
lar order over them. Scipio therefore, having sounded the 
recall for the Hastats, who were in pursuit of the flying foes, 
made them form beyond the heaps of slain ; then increasing 
the depth of the Principes and Triarians on the wings, he 
advanced with them over the dead bodies, and on coming up 
with the Hastats led the whole force against Hannibal's re- 
serve. It was now that the battle might be said to commence 
in reality. The numbers were nearly equal,* their arms the 
same, their courage and discipline alike. Long was the 
contest doubtful ; at length fortune, or rather the destiny of 
Rome, favored the Romans. Lselius and Masinissa return- 
ing from the pursuit fell on the rear of Hannibal's troops, 
and thus assailed in front and rear they were forced to give 
way. The loss of the Carthaginians in this battle was 

* Polybius. Yet it can hardly be true. 



252 HISTORY OF ROME. 

20,000 slain, and nearly an equal number taken; that of the 
victors was from 1500 to 2000 men. Hannibal having, both 
before and after the battle, by the confession of Scipio him- 
self and the military men of all ages, done all that was in 
man to secure the victory, fled with a few horsemen to 
Adrumetura, whence at the call of the government he pro- 
ceeded to Carthage, which he had not seen since he left it 
six-and-thirty years before. He advised to sue for peace, as 
he declared himself to be beaten not merely in a battle but 
in the war, — meaning that the resources of Carthage were 
all exhausted. 

Scipio, having taken the enemy's camp, led his army back 
to Utica, where finding a Roman fleet arrived, he sent Lseli- 
us home with the news of his victory ; and desiring his legate 
Octavius to lead the troops by land to Carthage, he sailed 
himself with the fleet for the port of that city. When he 
came near it, he met a ship adorned with olive-branches, on 
board of which were ten noble Carthao-inians come to sue 



for peace. He desired them to meet him at Tunis, whither 
he repaired when he had taken a personal survey of the bay 
of Carthage. When the Punic envoys came, he held a 
council of war ; all voices were at first for destroying Car- 
thage ; bul Scipio, aware of the length and difficulty of the 
siege, and also apprehensive of a successor coming out to rob 
him of his glory, declared for peace, and his officers readily 
acquiesced in his views. After reprehending the Cartha- 
ginians for their breach of faith, he offered peace on the 
following conditions. The Carthaginians to retain all they 
had possessed in Africa before the war ; to make good the 
losses caused by their seizure of the ships during the late 
truce ; to give up all deserters and prisoners, and all their 
long ships and elephants but ten ; not to make war either in 
or out of Africa without the consent of the Romans ; to 
restore all his possessions to Masinissa ; to give three months' 
corn to the Roman army, and pay till an answer should come 
from Rome ; to pay 10,000 talents at the rate of two hundred 
a year ; and to give one hundred hostages, between the ages 
of fourteen and thirty years, to be selected by the Roman 
general. 

When the deputies returned to Carthage with these terms, 
one of the senators, it is said, rose to object to them, but 
Hannibal went and dragged him down from the pulpit. An 
outcry being raised at this breach of decorum, Hannibal 
again stood up and excused himself on the score of his 



MACEDONIAN WAR. 253 

ignorance, on account of his long absence from home. He 
then strongly urged to accept of peace on the terms pro- 
posed. His advice was followed ; the peace was confirmed 
by the Roman senate and people ; and thus, after a duration 
of seventeen years, was terminated the second Punic war. 

Scipio having led home his victorious army entered Rome 
in triumph. He derived from his conquest the title of Afri- 
canus, it is not known how conferred, and his was the first 
example of the kind known at Rome.* 



CHAPTER VH. 

MACEDONIAN WAR. FLIGHT OF HANNIBAL FROM CARTHAGE. 

ANTIOCHUS IN GREECE. INVASION OF ASIA AND DEFEAT 

OF ANTIOCHUS. DEATH OF HANNIBAL. LAST DAYS OF 

SCIPIO. CHARACTERS OF HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO. WAR 

WITH PERSEUS OF JTACEDONIA. CONQUEST OF MACEDONIA. 

TRIUMPH OF ^MILIUS PAULUS. 

The victory of Zama gave the Romans the dominion of the 
West ; the ambitious senate then aspired to that of the East, 
and the king of Macedonia was selected as the first object 
of attack. The people, wearied out with service and con- 
tributions, were with some difiiculty induced to give their 
consent ; and war was declared against Philip under the 
pretext of his having injured the allies of Rome, namely, the 
Athenians, and the kings of Egypt and Pergamus.t 

Philip after the late peace had been assiduous in augment- 
ing his fleet and army ; but instead of joining Hannibal 
when he was in Italy, he employed himself, in conjunction 
with Antiochus king of Syria, in seizing the islands and the 
towns on the coast of the ^gean, which were under the- 
protection of Egypt, whose king was now a minor. This 
engaged him in hostilities with the king of Pergamus and 
the Rhodians. A Roman army, under the consul Sulpicius, 
passed over to Greece, (552;) the JEtolians declared against 

* Livy, XXX. 45. See above, p. 85. 

t For this war and the follovp-ing events see the History of Greece. 
22 



254 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Philip, and gradually the Boeotians and Achaeans were in- 
duced to follow their example. Philip made a gallant 
resistance against this formidable confederacy ; but the con- 
sul T. Q,uinctius Flamininus gave him at length (555) a 
complete defeat at Cynoscephalse in Thessaly, and he was 
forced to sue for peace, which, however, he obtained on 
much easier terms than might have been expected, as the 
Romans were on the eve of a war with the king of Syria. 
The peace with Philip was followed by the celebrated proc- 
lamation at the Isthmian Games of the independence of 
those states of Greece which had been under the Macedonian 
dominion; for the Romans well knew that this was the in- 
fallible way to establish their own supremacy, as the Greeks 
would be sure never to unite for the common good of their 
country. 

After an interval of a few years, the long-expected war 
with Antiochus the Great of Syria broke out. The imme- 
diate occasion of it was the discontent of the JEtolians, who 
being mortally oifended with the Romans sent to invite him 
into Greece. He had been for three years making prepara- 
tions for the War, and he had now at his service the greatest 
general of the age, if he had known how to make use of him 
For Hannibal, having been appointed one of the suffetes at 
Carthage, and finding the power of the judges enormous in 
consequence of their holding their office for life, had a law 
passed reducing it to one year. This naturally raised him a 
host of enemies, whose number was augmented by his finan- 
cial reforms ; for finding that the public revenues had been 
diverted into the coffers of the magistrates and persons of 
influence, while the people were directly taxed to pay the 
tribute to the Romans, he instituted an inquiry, and proved 
that the ordinary revenues of the state were abundantly 
sufficient for all purposes. Those who felt their incomes 
thus reduced sought to rouse the enmity of the Romans 
against Hannibal, whom they charged with a secret cor- 
respondence with Antiochus; and though Scipio strongly 
urged the indignity of the Roman senate becoming the 
instrument of a faction in Carthage, hatred of Hannibal pre- 
vailed, and three senators were sent to Carthage, ostensively 
to settle some disputes between the Carthaginians and Masi- 
nissa. Hannibal, who knew their real object, left the city 
secretly in the night, and getting on board a ship sailed to 
Tyre. He thence went to Antioch, and finding that Antio- 



FLIGHT OF HANNJBAL FROM CARTHAGE. 255 

chus was at Ephesus, he proceeded to that city, where he 
met with a most flattering reception from the monarch, (557.) 

Hannibal, true to his maxim that the Romans were only 
to be conquered in Italy, proposed to the king to let him 
have a good fleet and ten thousand men, with which he would 
pass over to Africa, when he hoped to be able to induce the 
Carthaginians to take arms again ; and if he did not succeed, 
he would land somewhere in Italy. He would have the king 
meanwhile to pass virith a large army over to Greece, and to 
remain there ready to invadejtaly, if necessary, Antiochus 
at first assented to this plan of the war ; but he afterwards 
lent an ear to the suggestions of Thoas the jjEtolian, who 
was jealous of the great Carthaginian, and gave it up. He 
himself passed over at length (560) to Greece with a small 
army of ten thousand men ; but instead of acting at once 
with vigor, he loitered in Eubcea, where he espoused a 
beautiful maiden, wasted his time in petty negotiations in 
Thessaly and the adjoinin'g country, by which he highly 
offended king Philip, whom it was his first duty to conciliate, 
and thus gave the consul Acilius Glabrio time to land his 
army and enter Thessaly. Antiochus hastened from Eubcea 
to defend the pass of Thermopylas against him ; but he was 
totally defeated, and forced to fly to Asia, (561.) 

Antiochus flattered himself at first that the Romans would 
not follow him into Asia ; but Hannibal soon proved to him 
that such an expectation was a vain one, and that he must 
prepare for war. At Rome the invasion of Asia was at once 
resolved on. The two new consuls, C. Lselius and L. Scipio 
(562) were both equally anxious to have the conducting of 
this war ; the senate were mostly in favor of Laslius, an 
officer of skill and experience, while L. Scipio was a man 
of very moderate abilities. But Scipio Africanus offering, 
if his brother was appointed, to go as his legate, Greece was 
assigned to him as his province without any further hesita- 
tion. The Scipios then, having raised what troops were 
requisite, among which 5000 of those who had served under 
Africanus came as volunteers, passed over to Epirus with a 
force of about 13,000 men. In Thessaly, Acilius delivered 
up to them two legions which he had under his command, 
and being supplied with provisions and every thing else they 
required they marched through Macedonia and Thrace for 
the Hellespont. A Roman fleet was in the ^gean, which, 
united with those of Eumenes of Pergamus and the Rhodi- 
ans, proved an overmatch for that of Antiochus, even though 



25(5 HISTORY OF ROME. 

commanded by Hannibal. When the Scipios reached the 
Hellespont, they found every thing prepared for the passage 
by Eumenes. They crossed without any opposition ; and as 
this was the time for moving the Ancilia at Rome, P. Scipio, 
who was one of the Salii, caused the army to make a halt 
of a few days on that account. 

While they remained here, an envoy came from Antiochus 
proposing peace, on condition of his giving up all claim to 
the Grecian cities in Asia and paying one half of the ex- 
penses of the war. The Scipios insisted on his paying all 
the expenses of the war, as he had been the cause of it, and 
evacuating Asia on this side of Mount Taurus. The envoy 
then applied privately to P. Scipio, telling him that the king 
would release without ransom his son, who had fallen lately 
into his hands, and give him a large quantity of gold and 
every honor he could bestow, if through his means he could 
obtain more equitable terms. Scipio expressed his gratitude, 
as a private person, to the king for the offer to release his 
son; and, as a friend, advised him to accept any terms he 
could get, as his case was hopeless. The envoy retired ; 
the Romans advanced to Ilium, where the consul ascended 
and offered sacrifice to Minerva, to the great joy of the 
Tlienses, who asserted themselves to be the progenitors of the 
Romans. They thence advanced to the head of the river 
Caicus. Antiochus, who was at Thyatira, hearing that P. 
Scipio was lying sick at Elaea, sent his son to him, and 
received in return his thanks, and his advice not to engage 
till he had rejoined the army. As in case of defeat his only 
hopes lay in P. Scipio, he took his counsel, and retiring to 
the foot of Mount Sipylus formed a strong camp near Mag- 
nesia. 

The consul advanced, and encamped about four miles off; 
and as the kincr seemed not inclined to fiofht, and the Roman 
soldiers were full of contempt for the enemy, and clamorous 
for action, it was resolved, if he did not accept the proffered 
battle, to storm his camp. But Antiochus, fearing that the 
spirit of his men would sink if he declined fighting, led tli^m 
out when he saw the Romans in array. 

The Roman army, consisting of four legions, each of 5400 
men, was drawn up in the usual manner, its left resting on a 
river ; 3000 Achaean and Pergamene foot were placed on the 
right, and beyond them the horse, about 3000 in number ; 
sixteen African elephants were stationed in the rear. The 
army of Antiochus consisted of 63,000 foot, 12,000 horse," 



DEFEAT OF ANTIOCHUS. 257 

and fifty-four elephants. His phalanx of 16,000 men was 
drawn up in ten divisions, each of fifty men in rank and 
thirty-two in file, with two elephants in each of the intervals. 
On the left and right of the phalanx were placed the cavalry, 
the light troops and the remainder of the elephants, the 
scythed chariots, and Arab archers, mounted on dromedaries. 

When the armies were arrayed there came on a fog, 
with a light kind of rain, which relaxed the bow-strings, 
slings, and dart-thongs of the numerous light troops of the 
king, and the darkness caused confusion in his long and 
various line, Eumenes also, by a proper use of the light 
troops, frightened the horses of the scythed chariots, and drove 
them off the field. The Roman horse then charged that of 
the enemy and put it to flight ; the confusion of the left wing 
extended to the phalangites, who, by their own men rushing 
from the left among them, were prevented from using their 
long sarisscB, and were easily broken and slaughtered by the 
Romans, who now also knew from experience how to deal 
vv^ith the elephants. Antiochus, who commanded in person 
on the right, drove the four turms or troops of horse opposed 
to him, and a part of the foot, back to their camp ; but M. 
^milius, who commanded there, rallied them. Eumenes' 
brother. Attains, came from the right with some horse; the 
king turned and fled ; the rout became general ; the slaughter, 
as usual, enormous : the camp was taken and pillaged. The 
loss of the Syrians is stated at 53,000 slain, 1400 taken ; 
that of the Romans and their ally Eumenes at only, 350 men ! 

All the cities of the coast sent in their submission to the con- 
sul, who advanced to Sardes. Antiochus was at this time at 
Apamea : when he learned that P. Scipio, who had not been 
in the battle, was arrived, he sent envoys to treat of peace 
on any terms. The Romans had already arranged the con- 
ditions of peace, and P. Scipio announced them as follows : 
Antiochus should abstain from Europe, and give up all Asia 
this side of Taurus; pay 15,000 Euboic talents for the expenses 
of the war, 500 down, 1500 when the senate and people rati- 
fied the peace, the remainder in twelve years, at 1000 talents 
a year; give Eumenes 400 talents and a quantity of corn ; 
give twenty hostages; and, above all, deliver up Hanni- 
bal, Thoas the JEtolian, and three other Greeks, The king's 
envoys went direct to Rome, whither also went Eumenes in 
person, and embassies from Rhodes and other places; the 
consul put his troops in winter quarters at Magnesia, Tral- 
les, and Ephesus. 

22* GG 



258 HISTORY OF ROME. 

At Rome the peace was confirmed with Antiochus. The 
greater part of the ceded territory was granted to Eumenes, 
Lycia and part of Caria to the Rhodians, (whose usually 
prudent aristocracy committed a great error in seeking this 
aggrandizement of their dominion;) and such towns as had 
taken part with the Romans were freed from tribute. L. 
Scipio triumphed on his return to Rome, and assumed the 
surname of Asiaticus, to be in this respect on an equality 
with his illustrious brother. 

Cn. Manlius Vulso succeeded Scipio in Asia, (563,) and as 
the Roman consuls now began to regard it as discreditable 
and unprofitable to pass their year without war, he looked 
round him for an enemy from whom he might derive fame 
and wealth. He fixed on the Gallo-Grecians, as the descend- 
ants of those Gauls were called who had passed over into 
Asia in the time of Pyrrhus, and won a territory for them- 
selves, named from them in after-times Galatia. He stormed 
their fortified camp on Mount Olympus in Mysia, gave them 
a great defeat on the plains of Ancyra, and forced them to 
sue for peace. The booty gained, the produce of their plun- 
der for many years, was immense. Manlius then led his army 
back to the coast for the winter. The next year (564) ten 
commissioners came out to ratify the peace with Antiochus ; 
they added some more conditions, such as the surrender of 
his elephants: the peace was then sworn to, and the Romans 
evacuated Asia. 

Hannibal, when he found that the Romans demanded him, 
retired to Crete ; not thinking himself, however, safe in that 
island, he left it soon after and repaired to the court of Pru- 
sias, king of Bithynia, who felt flattered by the presence of 
so great a man. But the vengeance of Rome did not sleep, 
and no less a person than T. Flamininus was sent (569) to de- 
mand his death or his surrender. The mean-spirited Prusias, 
immediately after a conference with the Roman envoy, sent 
soldiers to seize his illustrious guest. Hannibal, who it is 
said had, in expectation of treachery, made seven passages, 
open and secret, from his house, attempted to escape by the 
most private one; but finding it guarded, he had recourse 
to the poison which he always carried about him. Having 
vented imprecations on Prusias for his breach of hospitality, 
he drank the poison and expired, in the sixty-fifth year of 
his age. 

It is said that Scipio Africanus died in the same year 
with his illustrious rival, an instance also of the mutability 



LAST DAYS OF SCIPIO. 259 

of fortune, for the conqueror of Carthage breathed his last 
in exile ! In the year 559 he had had a specimen of the 
instability of popular favor; for while at the consular elec- 
tions he and all the Cornelian gens exerted their influence in 
favor of his cousin P. Cornelius Scipio, the son of Cnseus, who 
had been killed in Spain, — and who was himself of so exem- 
plary a character, that when the statue of the Idasan Mother 
(Cybele) was brought to Rome, it was committed to his 
charge, as being the best man in the city, — they were forced 
to yield to that of the vain-glorious T.Q,uinctius Flamininus, 
who sued for his brother, the profligate L. Quinctius. But, 
as the historian observes, the glory of Flamininus was fresh- 
er ; he had triumphed that very year; whereas Africanus had 
been now ten years in the public view, and since his victory 
over Hannibal he had been consul a second time, and cen- 
sor, — very sufficient reasons for the decline of his favor with 
the unstable people. 

The year after the conclusion of the peace with Antiochus, 
(566,) the Q,. Petillii, tribunes of the people, at the instigation, 
it is said, of Cato, cited Scipio Africanus before the tribes, to 
answer various charges on old and new grounds, of which 
the chief was that of having taken bribes from Antiochus, 
and not having accounted for the spoil. Scipio was attended 
to the Forum by an immense concourse of people ; he dis- 
dained to notice the charges against him ; in a long speech he 
enumerated the various actions he had performed, and taking 
a book from his bosom, " In this," said he, " is an account of 
all you want to know." " Read it," said the tribunes, " and 
let it then be deposited in the treasury." " No," said Scipio, 
" I will not offer myself such an insult ; " and he tore the book 
before their faces.* 

The night came on; the cause was deferred till the next 
day : at dawn the tribunes took their seat on the Rostra; the 
accused, on being cited, came before it, attended by a crowd 
of his friends and clients. "This day, ye tribunes and Q,ui- 
rites," said he, " I defeated Hannibal in Africa. As, there- 
fore, it should be free from strife and litigation, I will go to 
the Capitol and give thanks to Jupiter and the other gods who 
inspired me on this and other days to do good service to the 
state. Let whoso will, come with me and pray the gods 
that ye may always have leaders like untojme." He ascended 
the Capitol ; all followed him, and the tribunes were left sit- 

* Gellius, iv. 18. 



260 HISTORY OF ROME. 

ting alone. He then went round to all the other temples, still 
followed by the people; and this last day of his glory nearly 
equalled that of his triumph for conquered Africa. His 
cause was put off for some days longer ; but in the inter- 
val, disgusted with the prospect of contests with the tribunes, 
which his proud spirit could ill brook, he retired toLiternum 
in Campania. On his not appearing, the tribunes spoke of 
sending and dragging hiin before the tribunal ; but their 
colleagues interposed, especially Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, 
from whom it was least expected, as he was at enmity with 
the Scipios. The senate thanked Gracchus for his noble 
conduct,* the matter dropped, and Scipio spent the remain- 
der of his days at Liternum. He was buried there, it is said, 
at his own desire, that his ungrateful country might not even 
possess his ashes. 

The actions of the two great men who were now removed 
from the scene sufficiently declare their characters. As a 
general, Hannibal is almost without an equal ; not a single 
military error can be charged on him, and the address with 
which he managed to keep an army composed of such dis- 
cordant elements as his in obedience, even when obliged to 
act on the defensive, is astonishing. The charges of perfidy, 
cruelty, and such like, made against him by the Roman 
writers, are quite unfounded, and are belied by facts. No- 
where does Hannibal's character appear so great as when, 
after the defeat at Zama, he, with unbroken spirit, applied 
his great mind to the reform of political abuses and the 
restoration of the finances, in the hopes of once more rais- 
ing his country to independence. Here he shone the true 
patriot. 

The character of his rival has come down to us under the 
garb of panegyric ; but even after making all due deductions, 
much remains to be admired. His military talents were 
doubtless considerable; of his civil virtues we hear but little, 
and we cannot therefore judge of him accurately as a states- 
man. Though a high aristocrat, we have, however, seen 
that he would not hesitate to lower the authority of the 
senate by appealing to the people in the gratification of his 
ambition ; and we certainly cannot approve of the conduct 
of the public man who disdained to produce his accounts 

* For this, and for his similar conduct to L. Scipio, the family gave 
him in marriage Cornelia, the daughter of Africoinus. The two cele- 
brated Gracchi were their sons. 



WAR WITH PERSEUS. 261 

when demanded. Of his vaunted magnanimity and gener- 
osity we have already had occasion to speak, and not in very 
exalted terms. Still, Rome has but one name in her annals 
to place in comparison with Africanus ; that name, Julius 
Ca3sar, is a greater than his, perhaps than any other. 

To return to our narrative. In the period which had 
elapsed since the peace with Carthage, there had been 
annual occupation for the Roman arms in Cisalpine Gaul, 
Liguria, and Spain. The Gauls, whose inaction all the time 
Hannibal was in Italy seems hard to account for, resumed 
arms in the year 551, at the instigation of one Hasdrubal, 
who had remained behind from the army of Mago; they took 
the colony of Placentia, and met several consular and praeto- 
rian armies in the field, and, after sustaining many great 
defeats, were completely reduced : the Ligurians, owing to 
their mountains, made a longer resistance, but they also 
were brought under the yoke of Rome. In Spain the various 
portions of its warlike population, ill brooking the dominion 
of strangers, rose continually in arms, but failed before the 
discipline of the Roman legions and the skill of their com- 
manders. T-he celebrated M. Porcius Cato when consul 
(557) acquired great fame by his conduct in this country. 

Philip of Macedonia, who with all his vices was an able 
prince, had long been making preparations for a renewed 
war with Rome, which he saw to be inevitable. He died 
(573) before matters came to an extremity. His son and 
successor, Perseus * was a man of a very different character ; 
for, while he was free from his father's love of wine and 
women, he did not possess his redeeming qualities, and was 
deeply infected by a mean spirit of avarice. It was reserved 
for him to make the final trial of strength with the Romans. 
Eumenes. of Pergamus went himself to Rome, to represent 
how formidable he was become, and the necessity of crush- 
ing him ; the envoys of Perseus tried in vain to justify him 
in the ,eyes of the jealous senate; war was declared (580) 
against him on the usual pretext of his injuring the allies of 
Rome, and the conduct of it wa^ committed to P. Licinius 
Crassus, one of the consuls for the ensuing year. 

The Macedonian army amounted to thirty-nine thousand 
foot, one half of whom were phalangites, and four thousand 
horse, the largest that Macedonia had sent to the field since 
the time of Alexander the Great. Perseus entered Thessaly 
at the head of this army, and at the same time the Roman 

* By the Latin writers he is always named Perses. 



262 HISTORY OF ROME. 

legions entered it from Epirus. An engagement of cavalry 
took place not far from the Peneus, in which the advantage 
was decidedly on the side of the king. In another encounter 
success was on that of the Romans ; after which Perseus led 
his troops home for the winter, and Licinius quartered his 
in Thessaly and Bceotia. 

Nothing deserving of note occurred in the following year. 
In the spring of 583 the consul Q,. Marcius Philippus led 
his army over the Cambunian mountains into Macedonia, 
and Perseus, instead of occupying the passes in the rear and 
cutting off his supplies from Thessaly, cowardly retired 
before him, and allowed him to ravage all the south of Mace- 
donia. Marcius returned to Thessaly for the winter, and in 
the spring (584) the new consul, L. ^milius Paulus, a man 
of high consideration, of great talent, and who had in a 
former consulate gained much fame in Spain, came out to 
take the command. 

Meantime the wretched avarice of Perseus was putting an 
end to every chance he had of success. Eumenes had 
offered, for the sum of 1500 talents, to abstain from taking 
part in the war, and to endeavor to negotiate a peace for 
him : Perseus gladly embraced the offer, and was ready 
enough to arrange about the hostages which Eumenes agreed 
to give ; but he hesitated to part with the money till he had 
had the value for it, and he proposed that it should be de- 
posited in the temple at Samothrace till the war was ended. 
As Samothrace belonged to Perseus, Eumenes saw he was 
not to be trusted, and he broke off the negotiation. Again, 
a body of Gauls of 10,000 horse, and an equal number of 
foot, from beyond the Ister, to whom he had promised large 
pay, were now at hand ; Perseus sought to circumvent them 
and save his money, and the offended barbarians ravaged 
Thrace and returned home. It is the opinion of the histo- 
rian, that if he had kept his' word with these Gauls, and sent 
them into Thessaly, the situation of the Roman army, placed 
thus between two armies, might have been very perilous. 
Lastly, he agreed to giv.e Gentius, king of Illyria, 300 
talents if he went to war with the Romans : he sent ten of 
them at once, and directed those who bore the remainder to 
go very slowly ; meantime his ambassador kept urging Gen- 
tiu"^, who, to please him, seized two Roman envoys who 
arrived just then, and imprisoned them. Perseus thinking 
him now fully committed with the Romans by this act, sent 
to recall the rest of his money. 



CONQUEST OF MACEDONIA. 263 

Paulus led his army without delay into Macedonia, and in 
the neighborhood of Pydna he forced the crafty Perseus to 
come to an engagement. The victory was speedy and de- 
cisive on the side of the Romans; the Macedonian horse 
fled, the king setting the example, and the phalanx thus left 
exposed was cut to pieces. Perseus fled with his treasures 
to Amphipolis, and thence to the sacred isle of Samothrace. 
All Macedonia submitted to the consul, who then advanced 
to Amphipolis after Perseus, who in vain sent letters suing 
for favor. 

Meantime the prfEtor Cn. Octavius was come with his 
fleet to Samothrace. He sought ineffectually to induce 
Perseus to surrender, and then so wrought on the people of 
the island, that the unhappy prince, considering himself no 
longer safe, resolved to try to escape to Cotys, king of 
Thrace, his only remaining ally. A Cretan ship-master 
undertook to convey him away secretly ; provisions, and 93 
much money as could be carried thither unobserved, were 
put on board his bark in the evening, and at midnight the 
king left the temple secretly and proceeded to the appointed 
spot. But no bark was there ; the Cretan, false as any of 
his countrymen, had set sail for Crete as soon as it was dark. 
Perseus, having wandered about the shore till near daylight, 
slunk back and concealed himself in a corner of the temple. 
He was soon obliged to surrender to Octavius, by whom he 
was conveyed to the consul. Macedonia was, by the direc- 
tion of the senate, divided into four republics, between 
which there was to be neither intermarriage nor purchase of 
immovable property, (connubium or commercium ;) each was 
to defray the expenses of its own government, and pay to 
Rome one half of the tribute it had paid to the kings ; the 
silver and gold mines were not to be wrought, no ship-timber 
was to be felled, no troops to be kept except on the fron- 
tiers ; all who had held any office, civil or military, under 
Perseus, were ordered to quit Macedonia and go and live in 
Italy, lest if they remained at home they should raise distur- 
bances. In Greece, the lovers of their country were put to 
death or removed to Italy, under pretext of their having 
favored the cause of Perseus, and the administration of 
affairs was placed in the hands of the tools of Rome. 

Paulus on his return to Rome celebrated his triumph with 
great magnificence. His soldiers, because he had main- 
tained rigid discipline and had given them less of the booty 
than they had expected, and instigated by Ser. Sulpicius 



264 HISTORi" OF ROME. * 

Galba, one of their tribunes, a personal enemy to Paulus, 
had tried to prevent it ; but the eloquence of M, Servilius 
and others prevailed. Perseus and his children, examples 
of the mutability of fortune, preceded the car of the victor. 
After the triumph, Perseus vi^as confined at Alba in the 
Marsian land, where he died a few years after. 

Octavius M^as allow^ed to celebrate a naval triumph ; and 
the praetor L. Anicius Gallus, who had in thirty days reduced 
Ulyria and made Gentius and all his family captives, also 
triumphed for that country. 



CHAPTER VIII.* 

AFFAIRS OF CARTHAGE. THIRD PUNIC WAR. DESCRIPTION 

OF CARTHAGE. ILL SUCCESS OF THE ROMANS. SCIPIO 

MADE CONSUL. HE SAVES MANCINUS. RESTORES DISCI- 
PLINE IN THE ARMY. ATTACK ON CARTHAGE. ATTEMPT 

TO CLOSE THE HARBOR. CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF 

CARTHAGE. REDUCTION OF 3IACEDONIA AND GREECE TO 

PROVINCES. 

After the conclusion of the Hannibalian war, the Car- 
thaginians seemed disposed to remain at peace; but the 
ambition of their neighbor, Masinissa, whose life, to their 
misfortune, was extended to beyond ninety years, would not 
allow them to rest. He was continually encroaching _on 
their territory and seizing their subject towns. The Roman 
senate, when appealed to as the common superior, sent out 
commissioners, who almost invariably decided in favor of 
Masinissa, and he gradually extended his dominion from the 
ocean inlands to the Syrtes. 

On one of these occasions M. Porcius Cato was one of 
those sent out; and when he saw the fertility of the Cartha- 
ginian territory and its high state of culture, 'tind the strength, 
wealth, and population of the city, he became apprehensive 
of its yet endangering the power of Rome; his vanity also, 
of which he had a large share, was wounded, because the 

* Henceforth Livy fails us, as we have only the epitomes of his re- 
maining books. Our principal authority for this chapter is Appian'a 
Punica. 



AFFAIRS OF CARTHAGE. 265 

Carthaginians, who were manifestly in the right, would not 
acquiesce at once in the decision of himself and his col- 
leagues ; and he returned to Rome full of bitterness against 
them. Henceforth he concluded all his speeches in the 
senate with these words, " I also think that Carthage should 
be destroyed."* On the other side P. Scipio Nasica, either 
from a regard to justice, or, as it is said, persuaded that the 
only mode of saving Rome from the corruption to which she 
was tending, was to keep up a formidable rival to her, strenu- 
ously opposed this course. The majority, however, inclined 
to the opinion of Cato; it was resolved to lay hold on the 
first plausible pretext for declaring war, and to those who 
were so disposed a pretext was not long wanting. 

At Carthage there were three parties ; the Roman, the 
Numidian, and the popular party. This last, which, with 
all its faults, alone was patriotic, drove out of the city about 
forty of the principal of the Numidian party, and made the 
people swear never to readmit them or listen to any propo- 
sals for their return. The exiles repaired to Masinissa, who 
sent his sons Micipsa and Gulussa to Carthage on their be- 
half. But Carthalo, a leader of the popular party, shut the 
gates against them, and Hamilcar, the other popular leader, 
fell on Gulussa as he was coming again, and killed some of 
those who attended him. This gave occasion to a war ; a 
battle was fought between Masinissa and the Punic troops 
led by Hasdrubal, which lasted from morning to nio-ht 
without being completely decided. But Masinissa, having 
inclosed the Punic army on a hill, starved them into a sur- 
render ; and Gulussa, as they were departing unarmed, fell 
on and slaughtered them all. The Carthaginians lost no 
time in sending to Rome to justify themselves, having previ- 
ously passed sentence of death on Hasdrubal, Carthalo, and 
the other authors of the war. The senate, however, would 
accept no excuse; and, after various efforts on the part of 
the Carthaginians to avert it, war was proclaimed against 
them, (603,) and the conduct of it committed to the consuls 
L. Marcius Censorinus and M. Manilius Nepos, with secret 
orders not to desist from it till Carthage was destroyed. 
Their army is said to have consisted of 80,000 foot and 4000 
horse, which had been previously prepared for this war. 

* Plut. Cato Major, 26, 27. Cato one day in the sehate-house let. 
fall from his toga some fine African figs, and when the senators ad- 
mired them he said, " The country that produces these is but three 
days' sail from Rome." 

23 HH 



266 HISTORY OF ROME. 

The Carthaginians learned almost at the same moment the 
declaration of war and the sailing of the Roman army. They 
saw themselves without ships, (for they had been prohibited 
to build any,) without an ally, (even Utica, not eight miles 
from their city, having joined the Romans,) without merce- 
naries, or even supplies of corn, and the flower of their 
youth had been lately cut off by Masinissa. They again sent 
an embassy to Rome, to make a formal surrender of their 
city. The senate replied that if, within thirty days, they 
sent three hundred children of the noblest families as hos- 
tages to the consuls in Sicily, and did whatever they com- 
manded them, they should be allowed to be free and gov- 
erned by their own laws, and retain all the territory they 
possessed in Africa. At the same time secret orders were 
sent to the consuls to abide by their original instructions. 

The Carthaginians became somewhat suspicious at no 
mention of their city having been made by the senate. They 
however resolved to obey, and leave no pretext for attacking 
them; the hostages accordingly were sent to Lilybgeum, 
amidst the tears and lamentations of their parents and rela- 
tives. The consuls straightway transmitted them to Rome, 
and then told the Carthaginians that they would settle the 
remaining matters at Utica, to which place they lost no time 
in passing over ; and when the Punic envoys came to learn 
their will, they said that, as the Carthaginians had declared 
their wish and resolution to live at peace, they could have no 
need for arms and weapons; they therefore required them 
to deliver up all that they had. This mandate also was 
obeyed ; two hundred thousand sets of armor, with weap- 
ons of all kinds in proportion, were brought on wagons 
into the Roman camp, accompanied by the priests, the sen- 
ators, and the chief persons of the city. Censorinus then, 
having praised their diligence and ready obedience, announ- 
ced to them the further will of the senate, which was that 
they should quit Carthage, which the Romans intended to 
level, and build another town in any part of their territory 
they pleased, but not within less than ten miles of the sea.* 
The moment they heard this ruthless command they aban- 
doned themselves to every extravagance of grief and despair; 
they rolled themselves on the ground, they tore their garments 
and their hair, they beat their breasts and faces, they called 
on the gods, they abused the R^omans for their treachery and 

* It well became the Romans after this to talk of Punica fides. 



THIRD PUNIC WAR. 267 

deceit. When they recovered from their paroxysm, they spoke 
again, requesting to be allowed to send an embassy to Rome, 
The consul said this would be to no purpose, for the will of 
the senate must be carried into effect. They then departed, 
with the melancholy forebodings of the reception they might 
meet with at home, and some of them ran away on the road, 
fearing to face the enraged populace. Censorinus forthwith 
sent twenty ships to cast anehor before Carthage. 

The people, who weVe anxiously waiting their return, 
when they saw their downcast, melancholy looks, gave way 
to despair, and lamented aloud. The envoys passed on in 
silence to the senate-house, and there made known the inex- 
orable resolve of Rome. When the senators heard it, they 
groaned and wftpt; the people without joined in their lamen- 
tations, then giving way to rage they rushed in and tore to 
pieces the principal advisers of the delivery of the hostages 
and arms ; and they stoned the ambassadors and dragged them 
about the city ; they then fell on and abused in various ways 
such Italians as happened to be still there. The senate that 
very day resolved on war; they proclaimed liberty to the 
slaves, they chose Hasdrubal, whom they had condemned to 
death, and who was at a place called Nepheris at the head of a 
force of twenty thousand men, general for the exterior, and 
another Hasdrubal, the grandson of Masinissa, for the city; 
and having again vainly applied to the consuls for a truce 
that they might send envoys to Rome, they prepared vigor- 
ously for defence, resolved to endure the last rather than 
abandon their city. The temples and other sacred places 
were turned into v/orkshops, men and women wrought day 
and night in the manufacture of arms, and the women cut 
off their long hair that it might be twisted into bow-strings. 
The consuls meantime, though urged by Masinissa, did not 
advance against the city, either through dislike of the un- 
pleasant task, or because they thought that they could take it 
whenever they pleased. At length they led their troops to 
the attack of the town. 

The c'lij of Carthage lay on a peninsula at the bottom of 
a large bay; at its neck, which was nearly three miles in 
width, stood the citadel, Byrsa, on a rock whose summit was 
occupied by the temple of Esmun, (iEsculapius ;) from the 
neck on the east ran a narrow belt or tongue of land, 
between the lake of Tunis and the sea ; at a little distance in- 
lands extended a rocky ridge, through which narrow passes 
had been hewn. The harbor was on the east side of the 



268 HISTORY OF ROME. 

peninsula ; it was double, consisting of an outer and an inner 
one, and its mouth, which was seventy feet wide, was se- 
cured with iron chains : the outar harbor was surrounded 
by a quay for the landing of goods. The inner one, named 
the Cothon,* was for the ships of war ; its only entrance was 
through the outer one, and it was defended by a double 
wall ; in its centre was an elevated island on which stood the 
admiral's house, whence there was a view out over the open 
sea. The Cothon was able to contain two hundred and 
twenty ships, and was provided with all the requisite maga- 
zines. A single wall environed the whole city ; that of Byr- 
sa was triple, each wall being 30 ells high, exclusive of the 
battlements, and at intervals of two hundred feet were tow- 
ers four stories high. A double row of vaults ran round 
each wall, the lower one containing stalls for 300 elephants 
and 4000 horses, with granaries for their fodder ; the upper, 
barracks for 20,000 foot and 4000 horse. Three streets led 
from Byrsato the market, which was near the Cothon, which 
harbor gave name to this quarter of the town. That part 
of the town which lay to the west and north was named 
Megara ; t it was more thinly inhabited, and full of gardens 
divided by walls and hedges. The city was in compass 
twenty-three miles, and is said to have contained at this time 
700,000 inhabitants. 

The consuls divided their forces ; Censorinus attacked 
from his ships the wall where it was weakest, at the angle of 
the isthmus : Manilius attempted to fill the ditch and carry 
the outer works of the great wall. They reckoned on no re- 
sistance ; but their expectations were deceived, and they were 
forced to retire. Censorinus then constructed two large bat- 
tering rams, with which he threw down a part of the wall 
near the belt ; the Carthaginians partly rebuilt it during the 
night, and next day they drove out with loss such of the Ro- 
mans as had entered by the breach. They had also in the night 
made a sally, and burnt the engines of the besiegers. It be- 
ing now the dog days, and Censorinus, finding the situation of 
his camp, close to a lake of standing water, unwholesome, re- 
moved to the sea shore. The Carthaorinians then, watching 
when the wind blew strong from the sea on the Roman sta- 
tion, used to fill small vessels with combustibles, to which 

* This was a general name for an artificial harbor, probably from its 
resemblance to the -Aoj-d-wv, a kind of drinkingf-vessel. 

t This is probably a Greek corruption of Magaria or Magalia, tents 
or dicellings, connected with the Hebrew magur, ' dwelling.' 



ILL, SUCCESS OF THE ROMANS. 269 

they set fire, and spreading their sails let the wind drive them 
on the Roman ships, many of which were thus destroyed. 

Censorinus having gone to Rome for the elections, the 
Carthaginians became more daring, and they ventured a noc- 
turnal attack on the camp of Manilius, in which they would 
have succeeded but for the presence of mind of Scipio, one 
of the tribunes, who led out the horse at the rear of the camp, 
and fell on them unexpectedly. A second nocturnal attack 
was frustrated by the same Scipio, who was now the life and 
Soul of the army. Manilius then, contrary to the advice of 
Scipio, led his troops to Nepheris against Hasdrubal ; but he 
was forced to retire with loss, and four entire cohorts would 
have been cut off but for the valor and skill of Scipio. 
Shortly after, when commissioners came out from Rome to 
inquire into the causes of the want of success, Manilius and 
his officers laying aside all jealousy, bore testimony to the 
merits of Scipio ; the affection of the army for him was also 
manifest ; of all which the commissioners informed the sen- 
ate and people on their return. Masinissa dying at this time, 
left the regulation of his kingdom to Scipio, who divided 
the regal office among the three legitimate sons of the de- 
ceased monarch ; giving the capital and the chief dignity to 
Micipsa, the eldest, the management of the foreign relations 
to Gulussa, and the administration of justice to Mastanabal. 
Scipio also induced Himilco Famseas, a Punic commander, 
who had hitherto done the Romans much mischief, to desert 
to them with two thousand two hundred horse. 

In the spring (604) the new consul L. Calpurnius Piso 
came out to take the command of the army, and the prsetor 
L. Hostilius Mancinus that of the fleet. They attacked the 
town of Clupea by sea and land, but were repulsed; and 
Calpurnius then spent the whole summer to no purpose in 
the siege of Hippagreta, a strong town between Carthage and 
Utica. The Carthaginians, elevated by their unexpected good 
fortune, were now masters of the country ; they insulted the 
Romans, and endeavored to detach the Numidians. Hasdru- 
bal, proud of his successes over Manilius, aspired to the com- 
mand of the city : he accused the other Hasdrubal of having 
intelligence with his uncle Gulussa, who was in the Roman 
camp ; and when this last, on being charged with it in the sen- 
ate, hesitated from surprise, the senators fell on and killed 
him with the seats ; and his rival thus gained his object. 

The elections now came on at Rome; Scipio was there 
as a candidate for the sedileship ; all eyes were turned on 
23* 



270 HISTORY OF ROME. 

him, his friends doubtless were not idle, and the letters from 
the soldiers in Africa represented him as the only man able 
to take CaT"thage. The tribes therefore resolved to make 
him consul, though he was not of the proper age.* The 
presiding consul opposed in vain ; he was elected, and the 
people further assumed the power of assigning him Africa 
for his province. 

This celebrated man was son to ^milius Paulus, the 
conqueror of Macedonia. He had been adopted by Scipio 
the son of Africanus; the Greek historian Polybius and the 
philosopher Panaetius were his instructors and friends ; and 
he had already distinguished himself as a soldier both in 
Spain and Africa. 

The very evening that Scipio arrived at Utica (605) he 
had again an opportunity of saving a part of the Roman army ; 
for Mancinus, a vain, rash man, having brought the fleet close 
to Carthage, and observing a part of the wall over the cliifs 
left unguarded, landed some of his men, who mounted to the 
w^l. The Carthaginians opened a gate and came to attack 
them, the Romans drove them back and entered the town; 
Mancinus landed more men, and as it was now evening he 
sent off to Utica, requiring provisions and a reenforcement 
to be sent without delay, or else they would never be able 
to keep their position. Scipio, who arrived that evening, 
received about midnight the letters of Mancinus ; he ordered 
the soldiers he had brought with him and the serviceable 
Uticans to get on board at once, and he set forth in the last 
watch, directing his men to stand erect on the decks and let 
themselves be seen ; he also released a prisoner, and sent 
him to tell at Carthage that Scipio was coming. Mancinus 
meantime was hard pressed by the enemies, who attacked 
him at dawn ; he placed five hundred men who had armor, 
around the remainder (three thousand men) who had none; 
but this availed them not; they were on the point of being 
forced down the cliffs when Scipio appeared. The Cartha- 
ginians, who expected him, fell back a little, and he lost no 
time in taking off Mancinus and his companions in peril. 

On his taking the command, finding extreme laxity of 
discipline and disorder in the army, in consequence of the 
negligence of Piso, Scipio called an assembly, and having 
upbraided the soldiers with their conduct, declared his reso- 

* The lawful age for the consulate at this time was forty-three years, 
and Scipio was only thirty -eight. 



ATTACK ON CARTHAGE. 271 

lution of maintaining strict discipline ; he ordered all suttlers, 
camp-followers, and other useless and pernicious people to 
quit the camp, which he now moved to within a little distance 
of Carthage. The Carthaginians also formed a camp about 
half a mile from their walls, which Hasdrubal entered at the 
head of 6000 foot and 1000 horse, all seasoned troops. 

When Scipio thought the discipline of his men sufficiently 
revived, he resolved to attempt a night-attack on the Megara ; 
but being perceived by the defenders, the Romans could not 
scale the walls. Scipio then observing a turret (probably a 
garden one) which belonged to some private person, and 
was close to the wall, and of the same height with it, made 
some of his men ascend it. These drove down with their 
missiles those on the walls opposite them, and then laying 
planks and boards across got on the wall, and jumping down 
opened a gate to admit Scipio, who entered with four thou- 
sand men. The Punic soldiers fled to the Byrsa, thinking 
that the rest of the town was taken, and those in the camp 
hearing the tumult ran thither also; but Scipio, finding the 
Megara full of gardens, with trees and hedges and ditches 
filled with water, and therefore unsafe for an invader, with- 
drew his men and went back to his camp. In the morning 
Hasdrubal, to satiate his rage, took what Roman prisoners 
he had, and placing them on the walls in sight of the Roman 
camp, mutilated them in a most horrible manner, and then 
flung them down from the lofty battlements. When the senr 
ate blamed him for it, he put some of them to death, and he 
made himself in effect the tyrant of the city. 

Scipio, having taken and burnt the deserted camp of the 
enemy, formed a camp within a dart's cast of their wall, run- 
ning from sea to sea across the isthmus, and strongly for- 
tified on all sides. By this means he cut them off" from the 
land; and as the only way in which provisions could now be 
brought into the city was by sea, when vessels, taking advan- 
tage of winds that drove off the Roman ships, ran into the 
harbor, he resolved to stop up its mouth by a mole. He 
commenced from the belt, forming the mole of great breadth 
and with huge stones. The besieged at first mocked at the 
efforts of the Romans ; but when they saw how rapidly the 
work advanced they became alarmed, and instantly set about 
digging another passage out of the port into the open sea ; 
they at the same time built ships out of the old materials ; 
and they wrought so constantly and so secretly, that the Ro- 
mans at length saw all their plans frustrated, a new entrance 



272 HISTORY OF ROME. 

opened to the harbor, and a fleet of fifty ships of war and a 
great number of smaller vessels issue from it. Had their 
evil destiny now allowed the Carthaginians to take advantage 
of their consternation and fall at once on their fleet, which 
was utterly unprepared, they might have destroyed it; but 
they contented themselves with a bravado, and then returned 
to port. On the third day the two fleets engaged from morn 
till eve with various success. The small vessels of the enemy 
annoyed the Romans very much in the action ; but in the 
retreat they got ahead of their own ships, and blocking up 
the mouth of the harbor, obliged them to range themselves 
along a quay which had been made without the walls for the 
landing of goods, whither the Roman ships followed them 
and did them much mischief During the night they got 
into port, but in the morning Scipio resolved to try to efiJect 
a lodgement on the quay which was so close to the port. He 
assailed the works that were on it with rams, and threw 
down a part of them ; but in the night the Carthaginians 
came, some swimming, some wading through the water, hav- 
ing combustibles with them, to which they set fire when near 
the machines, and thus burnt them. They then repaired the 
works; but Scipio finally succeeded in fixing a corps of four 
thousand men on the quay. 

During the winter Scipio took by storm the Punic camp 
before Nepheris, and that town surrendered after a siege of 
twenty-two days. As it was from Nepheris that Carthage 
almost entirely received its supplies, they now failed, and 
famine was severely felt. 

When the spring came (606) Scipio made a vigorous at- 
tack on the port of Cothon. Hasdrubal during the night set 
fire to the square side of it, expecting the attack to be made 
in the same place in the morning ; but LgbHus secretly entered 
the round part* on the other side of the port, and the atten- 
tion of the enemy being wholly directed to the square part, 
he easily made himself master of it. Scipio then advanced 
to the market, where he kept his men under arms during the 
night. In the morning he proceeded to attack the Byrsa, 
whither most of the people had fled for refuge. Three 
streets of houses, six stories high, led to this citadel from the 
market; the Romans, as they attempted to penetrate them, 
finding themselves assailed by missiles from the roofs, burst 

* It would appear from this that the wall on one side of the Cothon 
was rectangular, circular on the other. 



CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE. 273 

into the first houses, and mounting to the roofs, proceeded 
along them, slaying and flinging down the defenders; others 
meantime forced their way along the streets ; weapons flew 
in ail directions ; the groans of the wounded and dying, the 
shrieks of women and children, the shouts of the victors, 
filled the air. At length the troops emerged before the Byrsa, 
and then Scipio gave orders to fire the town behind them. 
Old men, women, and children, driven by the flames from 
their hiding-places, became their victims; every form of 
horror and misery displayed itself During six days devasta- 
tion spread around ; on the seventh a deputation from the 
Byrsa, bearing supplicatory wreaths from the temple of 
JEscuIapius, came to Scipio offering a surrender, on condi- 
tion of their lives being spared. These terms were granted 
to all except the deserters; they came out fifty thousand in 
number, men and women ; the deserters, of whom there were 
nine hundred, retired with Hasdrubal to the ^Esculapium, 
which being on a lofty, precipitous site, they easily defended 
till they were overcome by fatigue, want of rest, and hunger. 
They then retired into the temple, where Hasdrubal stole 
away from them and became a suppliant to Scipio. The 
Roman general made him sit at his feet in their sight; they 
reviled and abused him as a coward and traitor, and then 
setting fire to the temple all perished in the flames. It is 
said that the wife of Hasdrubal, whom with her two children 
he had left in the temple, advanced arrayed in her best gar- 
ments in front of Scipio while the temple was burning, and 
cried out, " I blame not thee, O Roman, who hast warred 
against an enemy, but that Hasdrubal^ a traitor to me, his 
children, his country and her temples, whom may the gods 
of Carthage and thou with them punish ! " Then turning to 
Hasdrubal, " O wretched, faithless, and most cowardly of 
men, these flames will consume me and my children; but 
what a triumph wilt thou adorn, thou, the general of mighty 
Carthage, and what punishment wilt thou not undergo from 
him before whom thou art sitting!" So saying, she slew 
her children, and cast them and herself into the flames.* 

It is also said, that when Scipio surveyed the ruin of this 
mighty city, which had stood for seven hundred years, had 
abounded in wealth, had spread her commerce far and wide, 



* This must be a fable. Why would Hasdrubal's v/ife rather perish 
with Roman deserters than be saved with her husband and her fel- 
low-citizens .' 

II 



274 HISTORY OF ROME. 

had reduced so many countries and peoples, and made Rome 
tremble for her existence, he could not refrain from tears, 
and he repeated these lines of Homer : 

" The day will come when sacred Troy will fall, 
And Priam, and strong-speared Priam's people." * 

When Polybius, who was present, asked what he meant, he 
owned that he had his country in view, for which he feared 
the vicissitudes of all things human. 

Scipio allowed his soldiers to plunder the town for a cer- 
tain number of days, with the reservation of the gold, the 
silver, and the ornaments of the temples ; and he sent to 
Sicily, desiring those towns from whom the Carthaginians 
had taken any of these last, to send to receive them. He 
despatched his swiftest ship to Rome with the account of 
the capture of Carthage, where the tidings produced the 
most unbounded joy. Ten commissioners were sent out 
forthwith to join with Scipio in regulating the affairs of Africa. 
What remained of Carthage was levelled, and heavy curses 
pronounced on any one who should attempt to rebuild it; 
all the towns which had adhered faithfully to it were treated 
in a similar manner ; those which had joined Rome, partic- 
ularly Utica, were rewarded with increase of territory. Africa 
was reduced to a province, a land and poll-tax imposed, and 
a prastor was sent out every year from Rome to govern it. 
Scipio triumphed on his return, (606,) and he was henceforth 
named Africanus. 

In the first year of the war against Carthage (603) a man 
named Andriscus, who pretended to b^ a son of king Per- 
seus, assumed the name of Philip, and induced the Mace- 
donians to acknowledge him as their king. He invaded 
Thessaly, but was defeated by Scipio Nasica, and the Achae- 
ans. Scipio's successor, the prsstor P. Juventius Thalma, 
brought more troops with him from Italy, (604,) but he lost 
the greater part of them and his own life in attempting to 
penetrate into Macedonia, and Andriscus reentered Thes- 
saly; Q. Caecilius Metellus, however, drove him out of it, 
defeated him in Macedonia, and afterwards in Thrace, by 
one of whose princes he was given up to the Romans 

*"EciGtrat r^uag, orav nor' oAojP.i; ^'IXiog [qt;, 

Kal n^iauog, xai Xabg Iv^iusXio} IlQiu^ioio. II. vi. 448. 
In like manner Mohammed II., when he entered the palace of the 
Caesars in Constantinople after the capture of that town, repeated a 
passage of Ferdousi, the Homer of Persia, to a similar effect. 



AFFAIRS OF SPAIN. 275 

Another impostor then appeared, who called himself Alexan- 
der ; but Metellus forced him to seek refuge in Dardania. 
Metellus triumphed, (606,) and received the title of Mace- 
donicus, and Macedonia was made a province. 

Urged by their evil genius the Achaean League now (606) 
ventured to measure their strength with Rome ; but one army 
was defeated by Metellus, and another by the consul L. 
Mummius. Corinth was taken and bunnt; Thebes and 
Chalcis were razed; and Greece, under the name of Achaia, 
was reduced to a province. Mummius took the title of 
Achaicus, and triumphed, (607,) displaying on this occasion 
a vast number of the finest pictures and statues, the plunder 
of Corinth. 



CHAPTER IX.* 

AFFAIRS OF SPAIN. WAR WITH THE LUSITANIANS. 

TREACHERY OF LUCULLUS. VIRIATHIAN WAR. MURDER 

OF VIRIATHUS. NUMANTINE WAR. CAPTURE OF TMU- 

MANTIA. SERVILE WAR IN SICILY. FOREIGN RELA- 
TIONS OF ROME. GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVINCES. 

THE PUBLICANS. ROMAN SUPERSTITION. ROMAN LIT- 
ERATURE. 

The hardy tribes of Spain alone now offered resistance to 
the Roman arms. We will therefore cast a glance at the 
affairs of that country since the time of the Hannibalian war. 

After the departure of Africanus, (547,) Indibilis and 
Mandonius excited their people to war, but they were defeated 
by the Romans ; the former was slain, and the latter given 
up by his own people. In 555 a new war broke out, in 
which the proconsul C. Sempronius Tuditanus was defeated 
and slain. The prsetor Q,. Minucius gained some advantages 
in 557, but it still was found expedient to assign Spain as 
the province of M. Porcius Cato, one of the consuls of this 
year. Cato, soon after his arrival, defeated a large army 
of the natives, and he then had recourse to the following 
stratagem. When deputations came to him from the several 

* Appian's Iberioa is the principal authority for this chapter. 



276 V HISTORY OF ROME. 

towns, he as usual demanded hostages, and sent sealed letters 
to each, directing them, under pain of slavery in case of 
delay, to throw down their walls. These letters he took care 
should all arrive on the same day ; there was consequently 
no time for deliberation ; each thought itself alone interested, 
his commands were every where obeyed, and the whole coun- 
try thus reduced to tranquillity. Cato then put the silver and 
iron mines on an advantageous footing for the state, and he 
triumphed on his return the following year. Spain was now 
divided into two provinces, named Citerior and Ulterior with 
respect to the river Ebro. 

The restless temper of the natives, and the ambition and 
cupidity of the Roman generals, would not however allow 
of permanent tranquillity, and hardly a year passed without 
fighting. Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, when preetor in Spain, 
(572,) arranged the relations between the Romans and the 
native population in a manner which gained him general 
applause. By one of his regulations, the Spaniards were 
bound not to build any more towns ; when therefore the Cel- 
tiberians of Segeda increased the compass of their walls, and 
removed the people of the smaller towns to it, the senate 
sent to forbid them, and as they did not comply with the de- 
mands made on them, the consul Q,. Fulvius Nobilior led an 
army against them, (599 ;) but the advantage in the campaign 
Avas on the side of the Celtiberians. The consul of the next 
year, (600,) M. Claudius Marcellus, when the senate had 
refused the Celtiberians peace, attacked and reduced them 
to submission. His successor, L. Licinius Lucullus, (601,) 
though the country v/as tranquil, would not be balked of his 
hopes of fame and booty. He crossed the Tagus, and, with- 
out any pretext, entering the Vaccsean territory, laid siege 
to the town of Cauca, (Coca;) and the people thus wantonly 
attacked were obliged to give hostages and one hundred 
talents of money, and to send their horse to serve with him. 
He then required them to receive a garrison ; and on their 
consenting, he put two thousand of his best troops into the 
town, with directions to occupy the walls. When they had 
done so, he led in the rest of his army, and gave the signal 
for a generar massacre of the male population, and of twenty 
thousand souls but a few escaped ; he *then plundered the 
town. After this vile piece of treachery he advanced through 
a country which the inhabitants had purposely laid waste, 
and sat down before a town named Intercatia; whence, after 
the army had suffered severely from hardship, want of neces- 



LUSITANIAN WAR. 277 

saries, and the incessant attacks of the enemy, he was glad, 
through the mediation of his legate Scipio, (the future con- 
queror of Carthage,) — for the people would not trust him- 
self, — to retire, on receiving hostages, a certain number 
of cattle, and ten thousand cloaks {sages) for his soldiers. 
Gold and silver, which he chiefly coveted, they had not to 
give. He then went to winter in Turditania. The historian 
remarks that he never was brought to trial at home for thus 
warring on his own account. 

Meantime the Lusitanians, one of the independent tribes 
of the peninsula, had ravaged the lands of the subjects of 
Rome, and defeated the praetors, M' Manilius and L. Calpur- 
nius Piso, and the quaestor C. Terentius Varro. They after- 
wards defeated L. Mummius, the future conqueror of Greece, 
who had taken the command. The Lusitanians south of the 
Tagus now shared in the war; a part of their forces crossed 
over to ravage Africa, while another part besieged a town 
named Ocila; but Mummius fell on them and routed them 
with great slaughter, by which he gained the glory of a 
triumph. His successor, M. Atilius Serranus, reduced a part 
of them to submission ; but when he went into winter quar- 
ters, they rose again and laid siege to some of the subject 
towns. Ser. Sulpicius Galba, the successor of Atilius, 
coming to the relief of one of these towns, was defeated, with 
the loss of seven thousand men, and was forced to fly. 

This was at the time Lucullus was in Spain ; and in the 
spring (602) he and Galba simultaneously attacked the Lusi- 
tanians, the former in the south, the latter in the north. 
Lucullus, having fallen on and cut to pieces those who were 
returning from Africa, entered Lusitania and laid a part of it 
waste. Galba invaded the country on the north ; and when 
some of the tribes sent embassies to him, proposing to renew 
the peace made with Atilius which they had broken, he 
received them kindly, affecting to pity them, laying the whole 
blame of their predatory habits on the poverty of their soil, 
and offering to give them, as his friends, abundance of fertile 
land. The simple people gladly embraced the offer, and 
leaving their mountains came down to the plains which he 
pointed out to them. These were in three several places; 
and he directed each portion of them to remain there till he 
came to regulate them. Then coming to the first, he desired 
them as friends to put away their arms ; when they had done 
so, he raised a rampart and ditch about them, (their future 
town as it w^ere,) and sending in a party of soldiers armed 
24 



278 HISTORY OF ROME. 

with swords massacred all who were in it. He did the same 
at the other two places, and but a few escaped being the 
victims of this detestable piece of treachery.* 

About ten thousand of those who had escaped from Lu- 
cullus and Galba assembled the next year (603) and invaded 
Turditania. The praetor C. Vetilius marched against them, 
and succeeded in driving them into a position where, to all 
appearance, they must either perish by hunger or face the 
Roman sword. They sent to sue for lands, offering to be- 
come Roman subjects. Vetilius consented to their request ; 
but Viriathus, one of those who had escaped from Galba, 
reminding them of Roman treachery, bade them beware, and 
pledged himself to extricate them if they, would be guided by 
him. They chose him general on the spot ; he drew them 
up in line of battle, directing them to scatter when they saw 
him mount his horse, and m.ake as best they could for the 
town of Tribula, All was done accordingly ; Viriathus re- 
mained at the head of one thousand horse. Vetilius feared 
to divide his troops to pursue the fugitives ; Viriathus kept 
the Romans occupied the whole of that day and the next, 
and then by ways with which he was well acquainted 
rejoined his men at Tribula. This stratagem gained him 
great fame among his countrymen, and his army was speedily 
augmented. When Vetilius soon after came against Tri- 
bula, the Lusitanian laid an ambush, and slew the praetor 
himself and nearly half his army. 

By his accurate knowledge of the country, by his military 
skill and fertility in resources, and by possessing the confi- 
dence and affections of the native tribes, Viriathus succeeded 
during five years in baffling or defeating all the Roman 
generals sent against him. 

' At length (607) the senate, Carthage and Greece being 
now reduced, resolved to prosecute with vigor the Lusita- 
nian war, which had assumed a formidable appearance. It 
was therefore committed to the consul Q,. Fabius Maximus 
JEmilianus, the son of JEmilius Paulus, and brother of the 
conqueror of Carthage. As the troops which he brought 
out were mostly composed of raw recruits, he avoided giving 
battle for a long time ; at length he engaged and defeated 

* Galba was prosecuted for this conduct by the tribune L. Scribo- 
nius, aided by M. Porcius Cato, now in his 85th year. He escaped by 
appealing to the compassion of the people, producing his young chil- 
dren to move their pity Cruelty and meanness often go together. 
(Cic. Orat. i. 53.) 



VIRIATHIAN WAR. 279 

Viriathus, and took two Lusitanian towns. Viriathus how- 
ever succeeded in gaining over to his side the greater part of 
the Celtiberian tribes, and he still harassed incessantly the 
Roman subjects. In 610 the consul Q,. Fabius Maximus 
Servilianus, the adoptive brother of JEmilianus, came out, 
bringing with him eighteen thousand foot and one thousand 
six hundred horse. He sent to Micipsa, of Numidia for 
elephants, and when they arrived he advanced against Viria- 
thus, and defeated him ; but the Lusitanian, seeing the Ro- 
mans scattered in the pursuit, turned back, and having killed 
three thousand, drove the rest into their camp, which he 
would have stormed but that night came on. By making 
attacks in the night or during the heat of the day, he so 
worried and harassed the Roman army that he at length 
forced them to retreat to the town of Itucca, whither he 
pursued them ; but want of supplies and loss of men obliged 
him to return to Lusitania. Servilianus then again invaded 
that country; but as he was besieging a place named Eri- 
sane, Viriathus, who had entered the town by night, headed 
a sally in the morning, drove off those who were digging 
the trench, attacked the rest of the army, and chased it into 
a position whence there was no escape. The Lusitanian 
used his advantage nobly and moderately ; he proposed a 
peace, on the terms of his being recognized as a friend of 
Rome, and all those whom he commanded being secured in 
the possession of their territory. The consul gladly accept- 
ed these terms, peace was concluded, and the senate and 
people of Rome confirmed it. 

But Cn. Servilius Csepio, the brother and successor of 
Servilianus, (611,) was by no means pleased at losing his 
chance of fame and plunder. He wrote home describing 
the peace as highly disgraceful to Rome. The senate gave 
him leave to harass and provoke Viriathus in secret ; but 
this did not content him, and on his repeated instances he 
received permission to make war openly. He came up 
with the army of Viriathus, far inferior in number, in Car- 
petania. The Lusitanian, not venturing to engage him, 
drew up his horse on an eminence, and sent off the rest of 
his troops by a deep glen ; and when he thought them in 
safety he rode after them, in the presence of Caepio, with 
such speed as to baffle pursuit. Some time after, however, 
he sent three of his friends to propose a peace : but the un- 
worthy Roman, by gifts and promises, prevailed on them 
to engage to assassinate their chief. It was Viriathus' cus- 



280 HISTORY OF ROME. 

torn to sleep in his armor, but his officers had free access 
to his tent at all hours. The traitors took advantage of this, 
and going in just as he had fallen asleep, killed him with 
one blow, they then fled to Caepio to claim their reward, 
and he sent them to Rome to claim it there. 

The Lusitanians deeply mourned their valiant, able, and 
noble-minded leader, and celebrated his obsequies with all 
the pomp and magnificence in use among them. They ap- 
pointed a chief named Tantalus to take his place ; but 
Viriathus was not to be replaced, and they were obliged to 
submit to Cgepio, give up their arms, and take the land he 
assigned them. 

The war which Viriathus had kindled in Citerior Spain 
now drew the attention of the Romans. The chief seat of 
this war was the city of Numantia, which lay in the present 
Old Castile. It was built on a steep hill of moderate height, 
being accessible only on one side ; the river Durius (Douro) 
and another- stream ran by it, and it was surrounded by 
woods. It contained, it is said, only eight thousand fighting 
men, but these were all first-rate soldiers, both horse and 
foot. Fulvius Nobilior, in the year 599, had first wantonly 
attacked Numantia ; Marcellus and LucuUus also turned 
their arms and arts against the Numantines, who therefore 
readily entered into an alliance with the Lusitanian hero. 
In the year 612, Q,. Pompeius, (the first consul of his name,) 
having received from his predecessor L. Metellus Macedo- 
nicus,* a well-disciplined army of thirty thousand foot and 
two thousand horse, laid sieo^e to Numantia ; but he met 
with nothing but disgrace and defeat ; his army was at- 
tacked by disease, and he was forced to disperse it through 
the towns for the winter. Wishing to end the war before 
his successor should come out in the spring, he entered 
into secret negotiations with the Numantines, who were 
extremely desirous of peace, and at his suggestion they 
sent an embassy to him. In public he demanded uncon- 
ditional submission, as alone worthy of Rome; in private 
he declared he would be satisfied if they gave hostages and 

* This was one of the best men Rome ever produced. As lie was 
besieging in this war the town of Nertobriga, the people, to punish 
one of their citizens who had gone over to the Romans, exposed his 
children to the battering rams. The father cried out not to heed 
them, but the generous Metellus gave up the siege, sooner than in- 
jure them. The fame of this humane act caused many towns to sur- 
render. Flor. ii. 17. Val. Max. v. 1, 5. 



NUMANTINE WAR. 281 

thirty talents in money, and delivered up the prisoners and 
deserters. They agreed, and all was concluded except the 
payment of a part of the money, when M. Popillius Laenas 
came out to take the command. Pompeius then turned 
round and denied having made any convention with them ; 
they appealed to his own officers who were present. Popil- 
lius sent them to Rome, and the senate having heard them 
and Pompeius, sent orders to Popillius to prosecute the war. 
He accordingly commenced operations against Numantia, 
but he was utterly defeated by its gallant defenders. 

In 615, the consul C. Hostilius Mancinus appeared before 
Numantia, but in every encounter he was worsted ; and on 
a false report of the approach of the Cantabrians and Vac- 
caeans to relieve the town, he fled in the night, and took 
refuge in the old camp left by Nobilior : here he was sur- 
rounded by the Numantines, and no chance appearing of 
escape, he sent to propose a peace. The Numantines would 
only treat with his qusestor Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, the 
son of him who had regulated the state of Spain, and Grac- 
chus succeeded in concluding an honorable peace, and thus 
saving a Roman army of twenty thousand men. But at 
Rome this treaty caused high displeasure; some were for 
giving up to the enemy all concerned in it, as had been 
done at the Caudine Forks; but the influence of Gracchus' 
friends prevailed, and it was thought sufficient to deliver up 
the general. Mancinus, who offered himself a voluntary 
victim, was taken by his successor P. Furius, and handed 
over naked and in bonds to the Numantines ; but, like Pon- 
tius, they refused to receive him. 

During this time Mancinus' colleague, M. ^milius Lepi- 
dus, not to be idle, made war of himself on the VaccEeans, 
under the pretext of their having supplied provisions to the 
Numantines, and he laid siege to their chief town Pallantia. 
The senate, loath to engage in a new war at this time, sent 
out to stop him ; but he wrote to say that he knew the real 
state of things better than they, and that all Spain would 
rise if the Romans showed any symptoms of fear. He then 
went on with the war ; but his hopes of glory and booty 
were foully disappointed : after a great loss of men and 
beasts he was obliged to raise the siege and fly in the night, 
leaving his sick and wounded behind him. The people of 
Rome deprived him of his office, and fined him heavily. It 
is not quite certain that such would have been the case if 
24* J J 



282 HISTORY OF ROME. 

he had been victorious. The consul Q,. Calpurnius Piso 
(617) did not venture to engage the Numantines, contenting 
himself with plundering the lands of Pallantia. 

It was now become evident that the Numantine war de- 
manded Rome's ablest general ; the people therefore resolved 
to raise Scipio Africanus a second time to the consulate for 
this purpose, (618,) the law forbidding any one to be consul 
a second time being suspended in his favor. As there were 
so many troops already in Spain, no legions were raised, but 
the name of Scipio brought together about four thousand 
volunteers ; and giving the charge of them to his brother 
Fahius Maximus, he passed over himself at once to Spain. 
Here he found the army in such a state of demoralization, 
that nothing could be undertaken till its discipline was re- 
stored. He forthwith gave orders for all sutlers, harlots, 
diviners and priests, (for ill success had as usual produced 
superstition,) to quit the camp. He directed all the need- 
less wagons and beasts of burden to be sold ; forbade the 
soldiers to have any cooking utensils but a spit and a brass 
pot, or to use any food but plain roast and boiled meat, or 
to have more than one drinking-cup ; he also obliged them 
to sleep on the ground, himself setting them the example. 
By various regulations of this kind, he got the troops into 
good order, arid having seasoned them by marches and coun- 
termarches, making them dig trenches and fill them up 
again, raise walls and throw them down, he led them into 
the VaccGean territory, whence the Numantines drew their 
chief supplies, and laid it waste, and then took up his 
winter quarters in that of Numantia. While here he was 
joined by Jugurtha, the nephew of Micipsa king of Nu.- 
midia, with twelve elephants and a body of horse and light 
troops. 

In the spring (619) Scipio formed two camps in the vi- 
cinity of Numantia under himself and his brother. His plan 
being to starve the town, he refused all offers of battle ; he 
divided his army into different portions, and raised ramparts 
and towers round the town, except where it was washed by 
the Durius ; and to prevent provisions or intelligence being 
conveyed in by boats or by divers, he placed guards on the 
river above and below, and from these stations he let long 
beams of timber, armed with swords and darts and fastened 
by ropes to the shore, float along the stream, which being 
very rapid kept whirling them round and round, so that 



NUMANTINE WAR. 283 

nothing could pass. The works round the town were six 
miles in circuit, those of the town being three miles ; and 
the besieging array counted sixty thousand men. 

The Numantines made several gallant but fruitless at- 
tacks on the Roman works. Hunger began to be felt, and 
all communication with their friends was cut off. A man 
named Retogenes, we are told, having engaged five of his 
friends to join in the attempt, they went one dark night, 
each with his horse and a servant, up to the Roman works, 
v/ith a ladder made for the purpose. Having ascended, they 
fell on and slew the guards on each side, and then getting 
up their horses,* they sent back their servants, and mounted 
and rode to solicit the Druacians to aid their kinsmen of 
Numantia; but their terror of the Romans was too great to 
allow them. The Numantines then went to a town named 
Lutia : here the young men were for giving aid, but the 
elders sent secretly to inform Scipio. It was the eighth hour 
when the word came; he collected what troops he wanted, 
and though the distance was forty miles he reached Lutia 
by dawn. He demanded the principal of the youth; he was 
told they were gone away ; he threatened to plunder the 
town if they were not produced ; they were then brought, 
to the number of four hundred ; he cut off their hands, left 
the town, and at dawn next day reentered his camp. 

The Numantines hopeless of relief, now sent five depu- 
ties, offering to surrender if they could obtain moderate 
terms. The unfeeling Roman would grant no conditions : 
the Numantines would not yet surrender at discretion. But 
the famine grew sorer every day ; they ate leather and other 
nauseous substances, and even, it is said, began to feed on 
human flesh. They sent once more to Scipio ; he desired 
them to give up their arms on that day, and repair on the 
next to a certain place. They asked a respite of one day, 
and in that time their leading men put an end to themselves. 
On the third day a miserable remnant came forth ; Scipio 
selected fifty to adorn his triumph, the rest he sold fo.r 
slaves; t he then levelled the town, and divided its territory 
among its neighbors. He triumphed on his return, and 
was named Numanticus. Little, however, on this occasion 
was the real glory of Scipio or of Rome. An army of sixty 

* If this story be true, the ladder must have been broad and boarded, 
so that the horses could walk up it. 

t According to Florus and Orosius, all the Numantines put an end 
to themselves, after burning their arms, goods, andjiouses. 



284 HISTORY OF ROME. 

thousand men starved out one of four thousand, to whom 
they would give no opportunity of fighting : a people who 
had generously granted life and liberty to twenty thousand 
Romans, were attacked, in breach of a solemn treaty, and 
destroyed, because they maintained their liberty. 

In the year 614 the consul D. Junius Brutus had entered 
Lusitania, and having subdued the country south of the 
Durius, he crossed that river and advanced to the Minius, 
(Minho,) which he also passed, (616:) he made war suc- 
cessfully on the Callaeci, who dwelt to the north of it, and 
obtained the title of Callaicus. 

The year after the capture of Numantia the consul P. Ru- 
pilius terminated a war which had been going on for some 
years in Sicily. It had thus originated.* 

In this fertile island, the wealthy natives, and the Roman 
speculators who had made purchases in it, were in posses- 
sion of large tracts of land. As the cheapest mode of cul- 
tivating them, they bought whole droves of slaves at the 
various slave-marts, whom they branded and placed on their 
estates. These men, who seem to have been mostly Asiatics, 
were treated with great cruelty, and so stinted in food that 
they used to go out in gangs, (it is added, with their mas- 
ters' permission,) and rob on the highways, and even attack 
and plunder the villages ; and the influence of their masters 
was so great at Rome that the praetors did not venture to 
suppress this disorder. The slaves thus got union and a 
kind of discipline : they learned their own strength, and 
began to form plots. 

Among the slaves was a Syrian named Eunus, who af- 
fected to be inspired by the Syrian goddess : by various 
juggling tricks he attained great repute among his fellows, 
and he publicly declared himself destined to be a king. A 
wealthy Sicilian named Daraophilus, who resided at Enna, 
treated his slaves with remarkable rigor, and his wife 
equalled him in cruelty ; their wretched slaves therefore 
formed a plot to murder them ; but they previously resolved 
to consult the prophet. Eunus promised them success ; 
they placed him at their head, and to the number of four 
hundred entered Enna, where they were joined by their 
fellow-slaves, and committed excesses of all kinds. Damo- 
philus and his wife were seized and brought before their 
tribunal; as he was pleading for his life two of the slaves 

* Diodorus, xxxiv. Florus, iii. 19. 



ROMAN GOVERNMENT. 285 

fell on and slew him ; his wife was given up to her female 
slaves, who, when they had tortured her, cast her down a 
precipice ; but their daughter, who had always been kind 
and humane to the slaves, was treated with the utmost con- 
sideration, and sent, under the escort of some whose honor 
and fidelity could be relied on, to her relations at Catana.* 

Eunus now assumed royalty. In three days he had an 
army of six thousand men, armed with axes, scythes, spits, 
etc. ; it gradually increased to beyond ten thousand ; he 
defeated the troops of the praetor P. Manilius, (616) ; and 
the same fate befell P. Lentulus the following year. A Ci- 
. lician slave named Cleon, in imitation of Eunus, put himself 
at the head of another body of slaves, and plundered Agri- 
gentum and its territory. It was expected that these leaders 
would turn their arms against each other ; but, on the con- 
trary, Cleon placed himself under the command of Eunus, 
and their forces at length, it is said, increased to 200,000 
men. 

The prsetor L. Plautius Hyps^us was defeated by the 
rebels, (618,) and the consul C. Fulvius Flaccus met with 
little success ; the next consul, L. Calpurnius Piso, defeated 
them before Messaua, and his successor, P. Rupilius, (620,) 
ended the war, their strongholds, Tauromenium and Enna, 
being betrayed to him : numbers of the rebels were slain in 
battle or crucified; Cleon fell fighting like a hero; Eunus 
was made a prisoner, and he expired in a dungeon at Mur- 
gentia. 



We will conclude this Part by a few observations on the 
foreign policy and government of the Romans at this time, 
and the state of their literature. 

It was always Rome's policy to form alliances, if possible, 
with the neighbors, or natural enemies as they are called, of 
any state with which she was at war. We thus find that in 
479 a Roman embassy appeared at Alexandria in Egypt, 
and concluded an alliance with Ptolemeeus Philadelohus, the 
object of which was a joint war against Pyrrhus, who was 
now become formidable ; but the death of that prince the 
following year made the treaty of no effect. The feeble 

* What was Scipio's boasted virtue to this ? 



286 HISTORY OF ROME. 

successors of the Egyptian king continued to regard the 
Romans as their protectors, and the year 586 offers a re- 
markable instance of the Roman influence. Antiochus 
Epiphanes had invaded Egypt ,^ Rome was applied to ; an 
embassy, headed by M. Popillius Laenas, came out. Antio- 
chus offered his hand to Popillius, who declined it, till the 
king should have read the letter of the senate, ordering him 
out of Egypt. Having perused it, he said he would advise 
with his friends. Popillius, drawing a circle round him with 
a wand, desired him not to leave it till he had given him a 
reply. The king then said that he would obey the senate, 
and the haughty envoy at length condescended to give him 
his hand. 

The kings of Pergamus and Bithynia were the obedient 
slaves of the Roman senate, who employed them against the 
kings of Macedonia and Syria; and as, lion-like, Rome 
always gave her jackals a share of the prey, their dominions 
were augmented by her victories. The meanness of Prusias 
of Bithynia was unparalleled ; he styled himself the freed- 
man of the Romans, and would go out to meet their ambas- 
sadors with a shaven head and the freedman's cap, (pileus,) 
as being just emancipated. Attalus III. of Pergamus, dying 
(619) without issue, left his kingdom to the Roman people.* 

Such portions of their conquests as they did not leave with 
their rightful owners, or give away, the Rom.ans reduced to 
provinces, which were governed by those who had borne the 
•offices of consul and praetor at Rome. The power of these 
Roman governors was nearly as despotic as that of the 
Turkish pashas, and they but too often plundered the un- 
happy provincials in a dreadful manner ; the conduct of the 
infamous Verres, as detailed by Cicero in his pleadings 
agrainst him, though an extreme case, will show to what 
lengths robbery and extortion might be, and sometimes were, 
carried by Roman prcetors and proconsuls. What aug- 
mented the evil was, that the office of governor was annual, 
and each governor was attended by a cohort of officers, 
friends, and dependents, who had to make their fortunes 
also, so that (though the command was sometimes prolonged,) 
the provinces had every year to expect a new swarm of 
bloodsuckers to feed on them. These governments were, in 
fact, the chief objects of ambition among the Roman nobility, 

* Mithridates, in his letter to Arsaces, (Sallust, Fragm.) says that 
the will was a forgery. 



ROMAN GOVERNMENT. 287 

who looked forward to them as the sources of wealth and 
fame ; for besides robbing those whom they were sent to 
protect, it was easy for them to pick a quarrel with some 
neighboring tribe or nation, slaughter a few thousands of 
them, and thence acquire plunder, and, on their return home, 
the honor of a triumph. The only remedy the provincials 
had, when oppressed, was a prosecution for extortion, {rerum 
repetundarum,) which they always found some one at Rome 
ready to undertake ; but this was in general but poor satis- 
faction, and the dread of it often caused the robbery to be 
the greater, as the plunderers had to get the means of bribing 
their judges and advocates; thus Verres, who had pillaged 
Sicily for three years, declared that he would be content if 
he could keep the plunder of but one year.* 

Another great source of misery to the subjects was the 
Roman custom of farming out all the revenues of the state. 
There was a large body of capitalists at Rome, chiefly con- 
sisting of the equestrian order, divided into companies, who 
took all the government contracts, farmed all the revenues, 
and lent their money on high interest at Rome, on exorbi- 
tant interest in the provinces. They were named Publicans, 
{JPublicdni,) as farming the public revenues : their wealth 
gave them such influence at Rome that they could dispose 
of political power as they pleased ; and between exorbitant 
interest for their money (we find most respectable men 
charging 48 per cent.) and excessive tolls and customs, they 
ground down, and alienated and exasperated the minds of, 
the provincials. Even in the year 585 the senate, when 
regulating Macedonia, declared that the gold and silver 
mines should not be wrought, or the domain-lands let, be- 
cause it could not be done without the publicans, " and 
where there is a publican," said they, "the public right is 
vain, or the liberty of the allies is nought. "t 

In the internal condition of the Roman state at this period 
we have to observe the absence of all civil commotions, the 

* Another evil were the Free Legations. When a man of rank had 
any private business to transact in the provinces, he applied to the 
senate for a free legation, as it was called, that is, to be appointed a 
supernumerary or unattached legate (as we may term it) to the gov- 
ernor of the province. He was thus invested with a public character, 
and entitled to make demands on the subjects for lodging, &c. at free 
cost ; and this was easily converted into a means of plunder and 
extortion. 

t Liv. xlv. 18: 



288 HISTORY OF ROME 

foreign wars which prevailed all through it giving ample 
employment for all orders of the people ; but the lower or- 
ders, by constant service abroad, gradually lost the character 
of the simple rustic plebeian in that of the soldier ; and the 
generals, to gain the votes of the troops at elections, acquired 
the pernicious habit of seeking to win their favor by gifts 
and by the relaxation of discipline ; whence in the later wars 
of this time we find the Roman arms unfortunate, till a 
Scipio or an ^milius Paulus comes to restore discipline. 

The superstition of the Romans at this time is also de- 
serving of notice. Every year, as regular as the election of 
magistrates, is the expiation of prodigies, such as temples, 
walls, and gates being struck with lightning, showers of 
stones, milk, or blood, oxen or babes in the womb speaking, 
lambs yeaned with two heads, cocks turned into hens, and 
vice versa, mice gnawing gold, etc. etc.; to obviate the ill 
effects of which, victims were slain and supplications offered 
to the gods by orders of the senate ; partly, it is probable, 
merely in compliance with the popular superstition, in part 
also from their sharing in it. 

Rome at this time began to form the literature which has 
coQie down to us ; but unfortunately, instead of being na- 
tional and original, it was imitative and borrowed, consisting 
chiefly of translations from the Greek, In the year after the 
end of the first Punic war, (512,) L. Livius Andronicus, an 
Italian Greek by birth, represented his first piny at Rome. 
His pieces v/ere taken from the Greek; and he also trans- 
lated the Odyssey out of that language into Latin. Cn. 
Nseviu-s, a native of Campania, also made plays from the 
Greek,* and he wrote an original poem on the first Punic 
war, in which he had himself borne arms. These poets used 
the Latin measures in their verse ; but Q,. Ennius, from 
RudifB in Calabria, who is usually called the Father of Ro- 
man poetry, was the first who introduced the Greek metres 
into the Latin language. His works were numerous trage- 
dies and comedies, (from tlie Greek,) satires, and his cele- 
brated Annuls, or poetic history of Rome, in hexameters, the 
loss of which, (at least of the early books) is to be lamented. 
M. Accius Plautus, an Umbrian, and Csecilius Statins, an 

* A translation of the Greek poem, the Cypria, is also ascribed to 
him ; but it would seem without reason, as the fragments of it are 
hexameters. The name of the real author is said to have been Lsevius. 



ROMAN LITERATURE. 289 

Insubrian Gaul, composed numerous comedies, freely imi- 
tated from the Greek. M. Pacuvius of Brundisium, the 
nephew of Ennius, made tragedies from the Greek ; L. 
Afranius was regarded as the Menander of Rome ; and 
P. Terentius, (Terence,) a Carthaginian by birth, gave some 
beautiful translations of the comedies of Menander and 
Apoilodorus. None of these poets but Plautus and Terence 
have reached us, except in fragments ; the former amuses us 
with his humor, and gives us occasional views of Roman 
manners, while we are charmed with the graceful elegance 
of the latter. It is remarkable that not one of these poets 
was a Roman. In fact Rome has nev'er produced a poet. 

d. Fabius Pictor, L. Cincius Alimentus, A. Postumius 
Albinus, M. Porcius Cato, and Cassius Hemina wrote his- 
tories (the first three in Greek) in a brief, dry, unattractive 
style. Cincius also wrote on constitutional antiquities, and 
seems to have been a man of research ; and a work of Cato's 
on husbandry has come down to us, which we could well 
spare for his Origines, or early history of Italy. 

25 KC 



THE 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



PART IV. 



* 



THE REPUBLIC. 

CONQUEST OF THE EAST, AND DOWNFALL 

OF THE CONSTITUTION. 



CHAPTER I.t 

STATE OF THINGS AT ROME. TIBERIUS GRACCHUS '. HIS 

TRIBUNATE AND LAWS I HIS DEATH. DEATH OF SCIPIO 

AFRICANUS. CAIUS GRACCHUS ". HIS TRIBUNATES AND 

LAWS : HIS DEATH. THE GRACCHI, AND THEIR MEAS- 
URES. INSOLENCE AND CRUELTY OF THE OLIGARCHS. 

CONQUESTS IN ASIA AND GAUL. 

Hitherto we have seen the Romans, in consequence of 
their admirable civil and military institutions, advancing 
from conquest to conquest, till no power remained able to 
contend with them for the mastery ; and, though their con- 
duct was far from according with justice and the rigid rule 
of right, the wisdom and energy of their measures must 

* There is no consecutive history of this period but the epitome of 
Livy and those of Eutropius and others, and the agreeable sketch of 
the ingenious but prejudiced Velleius. Appian's Civil Wars gives 
the internal history ; and from the year 683 we have the continuous 
narrative of Dion Cassius. The works of Cicero also furnish many 
particulars, and there are Lives of all the great men of this period by 
Plutarch. 

t Appian, B. C. i. 1—27. Velleius, ii. 1—7. Plut., Tib. and C, 
Gracchus. 



STATE OF THINGS AT HOME. 291 

command our applause. Internal tranquillity had also pre- 
vailed during this period of glory, and all orders in the state 
had acted together in harmony. The scene now changes. 
Henceforth the foreign wars become of comparatively little 
account, while internal commotions succeed one another 
almost without intermission ; liberty is lost in the unhal- 
lowed contests, and anarchy brings forth its legitimate off- 
spring, despotism. The progress to this consummation we 
will now endeavor to trace. 

The political state of Rome at this time was such as is 
most unfavorable to the maintenance of liberty. The 
people, who had the power of bestowing all the great and 
lucrative offices in the state were poor, Avhile a portion of 
the nobility were immensely rich. There were thus an oli- 
garchy and a democracy together in the state, and unless 
this condition of things could be changed there must be an 
end of the constitution. 

We have above shown one of the modes in which the 
Roman nobles acquired wealth, namely, by the oppression 
of the provinces. They had also been large purchasers of 
land in the sales of its domain made by the state; and as, 
on account of the constant wars in which Rome had been 
engaged since she had made the conquest of Italy, the vast 
tracks of public land which had been acquired remained 
mostly unassignedj they were occupied by the men of wealth. 
Had they, in conformity with the Licinian law, employed 
free laborers on these lands the evil had been less ; but 
the victories of the Roman people had filled the market 
with slaves, and the great landholders, finding that the 
work of slaves would come cheaper than that of freemen, 
who were moreover always liable to be draughted for the 
army, purchased large numbers of them, whom they kept in 
workhouses {ergastidd) badly fed and hardly treated, and 
forced to labor in fetters on their lands. These men were 
not, like the negroes, an inferior race; they were Gauls, 
Spaniards, Ligurians, Asiatics, and other intelligent or 
energetic portions of the human family. They had known 
the blessings of freedom, and, as the late events in 'Sicily 
had shown, they might endanger the state by a revolt. 

On the other hand, the frugal independent yeomanry, 
which in the good times had formed the pride and the 
strength of Rome, was greatly diminished, and at the same 
time was debased and corrupted. Engaged in distant ser- 
vice they were kept for years away from their farms, and 



292 HISTORY OF ROME. 

frequently on his return the soldier found that his family 
had been driven from their cottage by some wealthy neigh- 
bor who coveted their spot of land, and justice could not 
always be obtained against him. Or, having lost all relish 
for a life of frugal and laborious industry, they were easily 
induced to sell their little patrimony for what they could 
get, and then settled at Rome, living as they could, and 
selling their votes, or else they adopted a military life alto- 
gether. 

This state of things caused great apprehension to the 
prudent and patriotic, who could discern no remedy but a 
return to the provisions of the Licinian law ; and Laelius, 
the friend of the conqueror of Carthage,, had in his tribu- 
nate contemplated some measure of this kind, but he de- 
sisted when he saw the opposition which the nobility were 
prepared to give, and hence it is said he acquired his title 
of Sapiens, i. e. ivise or prudent. Some time after, (619,) 
Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, who had been queestor to Man- 
cinus at Numantia, being made tribune of the people, re- 
solved to attempt to remedy the evils of his country by 
enforcino^ the aararian law of Licinius Stolo. 

Tib. Gracchus was the son of that Tib. Gracchus of 
whom we have already spoken ; his mother Cornelia was 
the daughter of the great Africanus. This admirable woman 
had devoted herself to the education of Tiberius and his 
younger brother Caius, anxiously desiring that they should 
be the first men of their time in virtue and in ability. Nor 
were her labors fruitless; of Tiberius it is said, by one 
who condemned his measures, that *' he was (' the present 
enterprise set off his head') most pure in life, most abun- 
dant in genius, most upright in purpose ; in fine, adorned 
with as many virtues as human nature, perfected by careful 
culture, is capable of"* He was married to the daughter 
of App. Claudius, and his sister was the wife of Scipio 
Africanus. 

As is usual, various causes were assigned for the conduct 
of Tib. Gracchus. Some said that he was excited by two 
Greek* philosophers;! others, by Cornelia, who reproached 
him that people called her the mother-in-law of Scipio in- 
stead of the mother of the Gracchi ; others, by jealousy of a 

^ Veil. Pat. ii. 2. Cicero also, though he always condemns the 
conduct of Tiberius in the strongest terms, calls his " revolt from the 
senate" his only fault. (De Harusp. Resp. 19.) 

t Diophanes of Mytilene, and Blosius of Cumse in Campania. 



TIBERIUS GRACCHUS. 293 

young man of his own age, his rival in eloquence ; others, 
by anger and fear at the conduct of the senate on the oc- 
casion of the Numantine treaty.* But by far the most 
probable cause is that given by his brother Caius, who said 
that as he passed through Etruria, on his way to Numantia, 
he was struck with the deserted look of the country in 
consequence of the large estates, and observing that all 
those who were cultivating them were slaves, he began to 
reflect on a remedy. After his return to Rome he com- 
municated his views to his father-in-law App. Claudius, to 
P. Mucins ScjEvola, the great jurisconsult, and to P. Licin- 
ius Crassus, the chief pontiff — men not to be suspected of 
demagogy — and other eminent persons, all of whom agreed 
with him in sentiment. Encouraged by their opinions, and 
further invited by anonymous writings on the walls and 
public monuments calling on him to' resume the public land 
for the poor, he brought forward a bill prohibiting any one 
from holding more than five hundred jugers of public land 
himself, and half that quantity for each of his sons ; and 
directing triumvirs to be appointed annually for dividing 
the surplus lands among the poor citizens, who were more- 
over not to be permitted to sell their allotments. 

The wealthy exclaimed against this law as a crying in- 
justice : they had, they said, inherited this property from 
their fathers, or fairly purchased it : they had received it 
in dowry with their wives, and given it in dowry with their 
daughters; they had laid out their money on it in build- 
ings and plantations ; they had borrowed or lent money 
on it; the tombs of the fathers of many were on these 
estates, so long had they been in their families. On the 
other hand, the poor complained of the state of misery to 
which they had been reduced ; they enumerated the cam- 
paigns in which these lands had been acquired by the 
blood of their fathers ; they upbraided the rich with their 
want of feeling and patriotism in preferring faithless barba- 
rian slaves to free citizens and brave soldiers. The people 
of the colonies, municipal towns,! and others who had 
any concern in this land, flocked to Rome as the time for 
putting the law to the vote drew nigh, and, as they saw 
reason to hope or fear from it, sided with one party or the 
other. 

* Cicero, Brut. 27 ; De Harusp. Resp. 20. Veil. Pat. ii, 2. 

t These were the Latin and Italian towns. (Niebuhr, ii. 52, nofe.) 

25* 



294 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Gracchus himself, excited by the magnitude and anticipa- 
ted, good of his object, and warmed by opposition, exerted all 
the powers of his eloquence in his harangues from the Rostra. 
The beasts t)f the field in Italy, he said, had their holes and 
dens to lie in, while those who fought and died for it partook 
of its light and air, but of nought else, wandering about house- 
less and homeless with their wives and children. It was a 
mockery of the generals to call on their men in battle to fight 
for their altars and the tombs of their fathers, for of so many 
Romans not one had a family altar or tomb ; they fought and 
died for the wealth and luxury of others : they were called the 
lords of the world, while they had not a sod of their own. He 
asked the wealthy if slaves were better, braver, or more 
faithful than freenlen : he showed them that, by thus diminish- 
ing the free population, they were running the risk not only 
of not making the further conquests to which they aspired, 
but of losing to the public enemies the lands they already 
possessed. He finally told them that if they cheerfully 
yielded up what they held beyond the limits specified in 
his law, they should have the remainder in absolute prop- 
erty, and he gave an adequate remuneration for the money 
they had laid out on what they surrendered. He then de- 
sired the clerk to read out the bill. 

But the rich, fearing to make any opposition in their 
own persons, had engaged Octavius, one of the tribunes, 
on their side, and he interposed his veto. The clerk there- 
fore stopped reading. Gracchus then put the matter off 
till the next market-day; but with no better success, for 
Octavius again interposed. Gracchus appointed another 
day, and judging that Octavius' opposition proceeded from 
his being a holder of public land, he offered to make good 
out of his own fortune any loss he might sustain. Finding 
him obstinate, he suspended by his intercession the func- 
tions of all the magistrates till his bill should have passed, 
and he placed his seal on the temple of Saturn, that the 
quaestors might take nothing into or out of it* The 
wealthy now assumed the garb of mourners; they at the 
same time laid plots for the life of Gracchus, who aware 
of them went constantly armed with a dagger, taking care 
to let it be seen. 

Another assembly-day came : the people were preparing 

* As this was the treasury, this was what we now call stopping the 
supplies. 



TRIBUNATE AND LAWS OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS. 295 

to vote, when Octavius again interposed ; they lost patience, 
and were about to have recourse to violence ; but Manlius 
and Fulvius, two consulars, with tears implored Gracchus 
to leave the matter to the senate. He snatched up his bill 
and ran with it into the senate-house ; but here the party of 
the rich was too strong for him : he came out again, and in 
sight of the people besought Octavius to give up his op- 
position ; and when he could not prevail he declared that 
the public weal must not be endangered by their disputes, 
and that one or other of them must be deprived of his 
office. He then desired Octavius to put the question of his 
deposition to the vote, and on his refusal he said that he 
would propose that of Octavius. The assembly was then 
dismissed. 

Next day he proposed the question ; the first or praeroga- 
tive tribe having voted for it, he conjured Octavius to change, 
but in vain. When seventeen tribes had voted, he again 
implored him ; Octavius, who was naturally of a mild, mod- 
erate temper, hesitated and was silent ; but on looking at 
the rich, false shame overcame him, and he persisted : the 
eighteenth tribe then voted, and he ceased to be a tribune. 
Gracchus ordered one of his officers, a freedman, to pull 
him down: the people rushed to seize him, the rich to 
defend him, and he escaped with some difficulty. Q,. Mum- 
mius was forthwith chosen in his place. 

Gracchus now carried his laws without opposition ; he 
himself, his young brother Caius, and App. Claudius his 
father-in-law, were appointed triumvirs for dividing the lands. 
The senate, at the instigation of P. Scipio Nasica, an exten- 
sive holder of public land, had the meanness and folly to 
insult Gracchus by refusing him a tent, (a thing always given 
to triumvirs,) and by assigning him only 4^ asses a day for 
his expenses. 

Just at this time Eudemus, of Pergamus, arrived with the 
will of king Attains. Gracchus immediately proposed that 
the royal treasures should be brought to Rome, and divided 
among those to whom land should be assigned, to enable 
them to purchase cattle and farming implements. He further 
maintained that it was for the people, not the senate, to 
regulate the dominions of the deceased monarch. This 
galled the senate, and Pompeius rose and asserted that being 
Gracchus' neighbor he knew that Eudemus had given him, 
as the future king of Rome, the diadem and purple robe of 
Attalus. Q,. Metellus reproached him with letting the poorer 



296 HISTORY OF ROME. 

citizens light him home at night, whereas, when his father 
was censor, people used to put out their lights as he was 
going home, lest he should know that they kept late hours. 
Others said other things; but what most injured Gracchus, 
even with his own party, was the deposition of Octavius. 
Being aware of this, he entered into a public justification of 
his conduct on that occasion; but his arguments, though 
ingenious, are not convincing.* 

The nobility made no secret of their intention to take 
vengeance on Gracchus when he became again a private 
man, and his friends saw no safety for him but in being re- 
elected. To secure the people he declared his intention of 
shortening the period of military service, and to give an 
appeal, in civil suits, from the judges to the people. He 
also (perhaps to gain the knights) proposed to add an equal 
number from the equestrian order to the panel of judges, 
who had been hitherto exclusively senators. 

When the day of election came, the party of Gracchus was 
much more feeble than usual, for his chief supporters being 
countryfolk were away getting in the harvest, and they did 
not attend to his summons. He therefore threw himself on 
the people of the town, and though the strength of his ene- 
mies lay in that quarter the first two tribes voted in his favor. 
The rich then interrupted the proceedings, exclaiming that 
the same man could not be twice tribune ; a dispute arose 
among the tribunes, and Gracchus put off the election till 
the next day.t Though inviolate by his office he put on 
mourning, and during the rest of the day he went leading 
his young son about with him, and commending him to the 
care of the people, as he despaired of life for himself. The 
people attended, him home, assuring him he might rely on 
them, and many of them kept watch at his house during the 
night. 

In the morning the friends of Gracchus, having early occu- 
pied the Capitol, where the election was to be held, sent to 
summon him. Various unfavorable omens, it is said, oc- 
curred as he was leaving home, but his friend Blosius, the 
philosopher, bade him despise them. He went up : the elec- 
tion commenced ; the rich men and their party began to 
disturb it ; Gracchus made the sign which he had arranged 

* Plutarch gives the heads of his speech. Cicero (Laws, 1!1. 10) im- 
putes tlie ruin of Gracchus to his deposition of his colleague. 

t Appian, i. 14. Plutarch says that it was the friends of Gracchus 
who began to quarrel when they found tlie election going against him. 



TRIBUNATE AND LAWS OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS. 297 

with his friends during the night, for recurring to force : his 
party snatched the staves from the officers and broke them 
up, and girding their gowns about them fell on the rich men 
and drove them off the ground with wounds and bruises. 
The tribunes fled : the priests closed the doors of the tem- 
ple ; some ran here, some there, crying that Gracchus was 
deposing the other tribunes ; others said that he was making 
himself perpetual tribune without any election at all. 

The senate meantime was sitting in the temple of Faith. 
When Gracchus moved his hand to his head to give the sig- 
nal, some ran down crying that he was demanding a diadem 
of the people. Scipio Nasica called on the consul Mucins 
ScaBvola to do his duty and save the republic ; but he mildly 
Replied that he would not use force or put any one to death 
without a trial; that if Gracchus made the people pass any 
illegal measure, they were not bound by it. Nasica sprang 
up, and cried, " Since the consul is false to the state, let all 
who will aid the laws follow me." Then, regardless of his 
dignity as chief pontiff, and setting the retention of the pub- 
lic land, of which he held so large a portion, before all things, 
he threw the skirt of his gown over his head as a signal to 
his party, and began to ascend the Capitol. A number of 
senators, knights, and others, wrapping their gowns round 
their arms, followed him ; the crowd gave way through 
respect ; they snatched the staves from the Gracchians, broke 
up the forms and benches, and laid about with them on all 
sides. Some of the Gracchians were precipitated down the 
steep sides of the hill; about three hundred were slain, and 
among them Gracchus himself, at the door of the temple, by 
the statues of the kings ; or, according to another account, 
by a blow of a piece of a seat from Satureius, one of his 
colleagues, as he was running down the clivus of the hill. 
In the niffht the bodies of all the slain were fluna; into the 
Tiber, that of Gracchus included, which his murderers re- 
fused to the entreaties of his brother. Some of his friends 
were driven into exile ; others, among whom was Diophanes, 
were put to death. Blosius, when -taken before the consuls, 
declared that he had done every thing in obedience to Grac- 
chus. " What," said Lsslius, " if he had ordered you to 
burn the Capitol?" Blosius said that Gracchus would have 
given no such order ; but when pressed he answered that he 
would have obeyed it, as it must in such case have been for 
the public good. Strange to say, he was set at liberty! 

Thus, for the first time for centuries, was blood shed in 

LL 



298 HISTORY OF ROME. 

civil contest in Rome, — a prelude to the atrocities which 
were soon to be of every-day occurrence. To the eternal 
disgrace of the Roman aristocracy, and to their own ulti- 
mate ruin, their avarice first caused civil discord ; and their 
contempt of law, divine and human, sprinkled the temple of 
Jupiter Optimus Maximus with the sacred blood of a tribune, 
and taught the Roman people to despise the majesty of office 
and the sanctity of religion. 

The senate pronounced the death of Gracchus and his 
friends to be an act of justice ; * but the people were so im- 
bittered against Nasica that he deemed it advisable to go 
out of their sight; and though his office of chief pontiff 
bound him not to leave Italy, he obtained from the senate a 
free legation to Asia, where, after wandering about for some 
time, he died at Pergamus, 

Scipio Africanus was at Numantia at this time, and it is 
said that when he heard of the death of Tib. Gracchus, he 
cried out in the words of Homer, 

Thus perish all who venture on such deeds ! t 

And when, after his return, (621,) the tribune Carbo demand- 
ed of him before the people what he thought of the death of 
Tib. Gracchus, he replied that he w^as justly slain if he had 
a design of seizing on the government. At this the assembly 
groaned and hooted at him, but he said, " How should I, who 
so oft have heard undismayed the shouts of armed enemies, 
be moved by those of you to whom Italy is but a stepdame ? " | 
The agrarian law also caused Scipio to sink in the popular 
favor ; for M. Fulvius Flaccus and C. Papirius Carbo, who 
were made triumvirs in the place of Tib. Gracchus and-of 
App. Claudius, (who was dead,) finding that those who held 
the public land did not give in an account of it, invited inform- 
ers to come forward. Immediately there sprang up a rank 
crop of legal suits ; for those Italians to whom the senate had 
re-granted their lands, and those who had purchased, were 
required to produce their title deeds; but some had been lost, 
others were ambiguous, and time and one cause or another had 

* Cicero (Plane. 36. Pro Domo, 54) says that Mucius applauded and 
defended the deed of Nasica. This hardly accords with his approval 
of Gracchus' project. 

\ ' S2g an67.oiro y.al aXXog, o t/? roiavxu ys qiloi. Od. I. 47. 

I Meaning that they were mostly freedtnen, not genuine P«,oman cit- 
izens. 



DEATH OF SCIPIO AFRICANUS. 299 

produced such confusion and uncertainty in the various pos- 
sessions, that the encroachments of the rich could not be 
ascertained with any exactness, so that no man was sure of 
his property.* 

In this state of things the Italians applied to Scipio Africa- 
nus, under whom so many of them had served, to advocate 
their cause. Not venturing openly, on account of the people, 
to impugn the agrarian law, he contented himself with repre- 
senting that it was not right that those who were to divide the 
lands should be the judges of what was public or not. As 
this seemed reasonable, the consul C. Sempronius Tudita- 
nus (623) was appointed to act as judge; but not liking the 
office he marched with an army into Illyria, under the pretext 
of some disturbance there. The whole matter came to a 
stop : the people were enraged with Scipio, and his ene- 
mies gave out that it was his design to abrogate the law by 
force. One evening Scipio went home from the senate in per- 
fect health, attended by the senators and a large concourse of 
the Latins and the allies. He got ready a table in order to 
write in the night what he intended to say to the people next 
day. In the morning he was found dead in his bed, but with- 
out any wound. Of the nature and cause of his death there 
were various opinions, some said it was natural,t others that he 
put an end to himself; others, that his wife Sempronia, the sis- 
ter of the Gracchi, (for whom he had little affection on account 
of her ugliness and her sterility,) and it was even added with 
the aid of her mother Cornelia, strangled him, that he might 
not abrogate the law of Gracchus,^ His slaves, it is also said, 
declared that some strangers who were introduced at the rear 
of the house had strangled him : the triumvirs Carbo and 
Fulvius are expressly named as the assassins. § Those who 
know how virulent and how little scrupulous of means par- 
ties were in ancient times, will probably feel disposed to sus- 
pect that he was murdered, and it is needless to say by what 
party. At all events no judicial inquiry was made, and the 
conqueror of Carthage had only a private funeral. H 

* The effect of the writ quo warranto in the reign of Edward I. was 
similar. 

t Which Velleius says was the more general account. 

X Appian, i. 20. Cicero, Somn. Scip. 2. Liv. Epit. 59. Cicero's al- 
lusion may be to C. Gracchus, who was suspected. Plut. C. Grac. 10. 

§ Cicero, ad Divers, ix. 21 ; Ad Quint, ii. 3. ; De Nat. Deor. ii. 5. iii. 
32. Plut. as above. 

11 Pliny, H. N. x. 43, 60. 



300 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Scipio Afiicanus is one of the most accomplished charac- 
ters in Roman story. As a general he was brave and skilful ; 
and though he had not the opportunities of displaying milita- 
ry talents of the highest order, success attended all his opera- 
tions, and he cannot be charged with any errors. He was of 
a noble, generous spirit in all his dealings, and in money mat- 
ters he acted with a liberality that was thought surprising in a 
Roman. Scipio was moreover an accomplished scholar ; he 
was the pupil of Polybius and Panaetius, and the patron of the 
elegant poet Terence, who is said to have been indebted to him 
and his friend Lselius for many of the graces of his dramas. 

For seven years (619-626) after the death of Tib. Grac- 
chus, his brother Caius seems to have abstained from public 
affairs. In 626 he was appointed quaestor to the consul L. 
Aurelius Orestes, who was going out to take the command in 
Sardinia. This appointment gave much joy to the nobility, 
who had been greatly troubled by the eloquence which he had 
lately displayed in the defence of one of his friends, and at 
the favor shown him by the people. Cicero * assures us that 
on this occasion Gracchus had a dream, in which his brother 
appeared to him and said, that, linger as he might, he must die 
the same death that he had died. The conduct of Gracchus 
during his quaestorship was deserving of every praise. 

The next year, to the mortification of the senate, M. Ful- 
vius Flaccus was chosen one of the consuls. Aware of the 
impolicy of alienating the Italians by putting them in appre- 
hension for their lands, Fulvius proposed to conciliate and 
compensate them by granting them the Roman civic franchise, 
and he prepared a law to that effect. The senators admon- 
ished and entreated him to no purpose ; he persisted in his 
measure : but just then the Massilians having sent to implore 
aid against the Salluvian Gauls, Fulvius was induced to take 
the command of the army sent to their relief; and his victo- 
ries in this and the following year gained him the honor of a 
triumph, (629.) 

The Latins and the Italians, who had gladly consented to 
accept the boon of citizenship in lieu of the disputed lands, 
were highly provoked at their disappointment, and many of 
their states began to think of appealing to arms. The peo- 
ple of Fregellse did actually revolt, but they were betrayed 
by Numitorius PuUus, one of their chiefs, to the praetor L. 
Opimius, who was sent with an army against them. Opimius 

* De Div. i. 26. 



CAIUS GRACCHUS. 301 

razed the town, and this severity deterred the people of the 
other towns from rebellion. 

Aurelius had now been two years in Sardinia, and the sen- 
ate, though they changed the troops, continued him in his com- 
mand, thinking that Gracchus would not quit his general, but 
Gracchus, seeing their object, became indignant, and sailed 
at once for Rome, (628.) His enemies exclaimed, that his 
friends were offended at such unusual conduct ; but he defend- 
ed himself before the censors, and proved that he was justi- 
fied in acting as he had done. The nobles then charged 
him with having excited the Fregellians to their revolt, but he 
easily cleared himself. He then offered himself as a candi- 
date for the office of tribune, and on the day of election such 
multitudes of citizens flocked to Rome, from all parts of 
Italy that the Forum could not contain them, and numbers 
gave their votes from the house-tops. 

Soon after he had entered on his office, (629,) he brought 
forward two laws, one declaring any person who had been de- 
prived of one office by the people incapable of holding any 
other; a second making it penal for a magistrate to try any 
person capitally without the consent of the people.* The 
first was directed against the deposed tribune Octavius ; but 
he gave up this bill on the entreaty of Cornelia, to whom Oc- 
tavius was related : the other was levelled at P. Popillius Lae- 
nas, who was praetor when Tib. Gracchus was murdered; 
Popillius, fearing to stand a trial, left Italy. Gracchus then 
had the following laws passed. 1. A renewal of his broth- 
er's agrarian law. 2. One forbidding the enlistment of any 
one under seventeen years of age. 3. One for clothing the 
soldiers without making any deduction from their pay on that 
account. 4. One for making roads through Italy. 5. One 
for selling corn to the citizens every month out of the public 
granaries at |- As {se?nisse et triente) the modius, or peck,t 
for which purpose he directed the revenues of Attalus' king- 
dom to be let by the censors.| 

Such were the measures of Gracchus in his first tribunate. 
The law for making roads was eminently useful, and he de- 
voted much of his attention to them. They were straight 
and level, with bridges where requisite, and milestones placed 
all along them. His frumentary law was a poor-law of the 
worst kind; it drained the treasury, and drew to Rome an 
idle, turbulent population. It is very difficult to believe that 

* Cicero, Rabirius, 4. t Liv. Epit. 60. t Cic. Verres, iii. & 
26 



302 HISTORY OF ROME. 

his motives in passing it could have been pure ; it was after- 
wards repealed with the full consent of the people.* Grac- 
chus also gained favor v/ith the provincials this year by the 
following act. The proconsul Q,. Fabius having sent from 
Spain a large quantity of corn extorted from the provincials, 
a senatus-consult was made on the motion of Gracchus, 
ordering the corn to be sold and the price returned to the 
Spaniards, and reprimanding Fabius for his conduct. 

By a law lately passed the people had been empowered to 
reelect any tribune who had not had time to complete a 
measure which he had brought forward ; accordingly Grac- 
chus was chosen one of the tribunes for the next" year also, 
(630.) On this occasion he gave a strong proof of his 
influence over the people. lie said to them one day that 
he had a favor to ask, but he would not complain if they 
refused him; and while all were wondering what it might 
be, and if he wanted them to make him consul as well as 
tribune, he brought forward C. Fannius Strabo, and recom- 
mended him for the consulate. His object was to keep out 
L. Opimius, a determined oligarch ; and he succeeded, for 
Fannius was chosen with Cn. Domitius. 

Gracchus' first law was one taking the judicial power from 
the senate, who had enjoyed it from the time of the kings, 
and giving it to the knights. As the senatorial judges had 
of late shown scandalous partiality in the cases of some 
governors of provinces, the senate was ashamed to make any 
opposition, and the law passed. It is said that when pro- 
posing this law from the Rostra, instead of facing the Co- 
raitium as had hitherto been the custom, he turned to the 
Forum, t thereby intimating that the power of^the state was 
in the people ; and he continued this practice. It is also 
said that when the law had passed, he cried out that he had 
destroyed the senate. Yet he at the. same time proposed 
and carried a law directing that the senate should every year 
before the elections decide what provinces should be consu- 
lar and what praetorian, and that with respect to the former 
no tribune should have the power of interceding. Gracchus 
next proposed a law for communicating the civic franchise 
to the Latins and the Italians, and extending Italy to the 

* Cic. Brut. G2. 

t He was not the first to do so; in 607 C. Licinius Crassus, when 
proposing a law for giving the choice of members of the sacred colleges 
to the people, had faced the Forum. (Cicero, Lselius, 25.) 



TRIBUNATES AND LAWS OF CAIUS GRACCHUS. 303 

Alps. It does not appear that this law passed, and it is 
likely that it injured him with the people, to gratify whom 
he proposed sending colonists to Capua and Tarentura. 

The senate had gained the consul Fannius to their side ; 
but not deeming this enough, they adopted a new system of 
tactics; they directed M. Livius Drusus, one of the tribunes, 
a man of birth, wealth, and eloquence, and entirely devoted 
to them, to endeavor to outbid Gracchus for popularity. 
Drusus therefore proposed that twelve colonies of three 
thousand persons each should be founded, that the rent im- 
posed by the Sempronian law* on the lands which were, or 
were to be, divided should be remitted, and decemvirs be 
appointed for dividing them. He also brought in a bill ex- 
tending immunity from flogging in the army to the Latins. 
These bills were readily passed by the people, and Drusus 
now rivalled Gracchus in popularity; and as he declared 
that he was acting entirely with the approbation of the 
senate, who gave a cheerful assent to all his measures, that 
body also rose in the popular favor. Drusus had a further 
advantao;e over Gracchus in that he abstained from handling 
the public money, and he appointed others, not himself, to 
lead his colonies. 

Gracchus was absent at this time. The tribune Rubrius 
had selected as the site of a colony the spot where Carthage 
had stood, and which Scipio had devoted to be a waste for- 
ever, and Gracchus and his friend Fulvius Flaccus had been 
sent to lay out the colony, which was to be named Junonia.f 
Various unpropitious signs, we are told, appeared ; a violent 
wind shook and broke the first standard, swept the sacrifices 
off the altar and carried 'them beyond the bounds, and wolves 
(the sacred animals of the sire of the founder of Rome) 
plucked up the boundary-marks and bore them away.| 
Gracchus however persisted, and after remaining there 
seventy days he returned to Italy to collect his colonists. 
Finding his influence on the wane, he moved down from the 
Palatine, on which he resided, to the neighborhood of the 
Forum, v/here the low^er sort of people mostly dwelt, to prove 

* That is, of Tib. Gracchus. Laws were always called after the 
gentile name of their proposer ; thus Sulla's were the Cornelian, 
Ceesar's, the Julian laws. 

t After Juno, or Astarte, the patron-deity of Carthage. (Virg. Mn. i.) 

t Appian says it was after the return of Gracchus that the prodigy 

of the wolves (the only one he mentions) occurred, and that he and 

Fulvius said it was an invention of the senate, who wanted a pretext 

for doing away with the colony. 



304 HISTORY OF ROME. 

his devotion to them. But his measure of setting the Italians 
on a level with them was too unpalatable to be digested by 
the populace of Rome, who, as is always the case, were as 
fond of monopoly, as jealous of their privileges, and as heed- 
less of justice in maintaining them, as any oligarchs whatever. 
When he proposed anew the granting the franchise to the 
allies, the consul Fannius, at the desire of the senate, issued 
an order forbidding any who were not qualified to vote to be 
in the city, or within five miles of it, on the day of voting. 
Gracchus, on the other hand, gave public notice to the 
Italians that he would protect them if they staid. He 
however did not, for he looked calmly on while one of his 
own Italian friends was seized and dragged away by the 
lictors, probably feeling that he could not now rely on the 
people, in his anxiety to gain whom he had also offended his 
own colleagues. For on the occasion of a combat of gladi- 
ators to be given in the Forum, they had erected scaffolds 
around it in order to let the seats ; Gracchus desired them 
to pull them down, that the poor might see the sport without 
payment. As they took no heed of him, he waited till the 
night before the show, when collecting a body of workmen 
he demolished the scaffolds and left the place clear for the 
populace, by whom this paltry piece of demagogy was of 
course highly applauded. 

The time of elections now came on, and Gracchus stood 
a third time for the tribunate; but he failed, some said 
through the injustice of his colleagues, who made a false 
return of the votes, but more probably through the ill-will 
of the people at his wanting to extend the franchise ; and 
moreover the senate succeeded in having L. Opimius, a man 
on whom they could rely, raised to the consulate. They 
deemed that they might novv' endeavor to abrogate the laws 
of Gracchus, and the first attempt was to be made on that of 
the African colony. Gracchus at first bore their proceedings 
patiently; at lengthy urged by Fulvius and his other friends, 
he resolved to collect his adherents and oppose force to force. 
On the day of voting on the law, both parties early occupied 
the Capitol; the consul, as usual, offered sacrifice; and as 
one of his lictors, named Antillius, was carrying away the 
entrails, he cried to those about Fulvius, " Make way, ye 
bad citizens, for the good ! " they instantly fell on him and 
despatched him with their writing-styles.*' Gracchus was 

* Plutarch. Appian relates this event somewhat differently. 



DEATH OB' CAIUS ORACCIIUS. 305 

sorely grieved at this violent deed ; but to Opimius it was a 
matter of exultation, and he called on the people to avenge 
it. A shower of rain, however, came on and dispersed the 
assembly. Opimius then* called the senate together, and, 
while they were deliberating, the body of Antillius was 
brous^ht, with loud lamentations, throuah the Forum to the 
senate-house by those to whom Opimius had given it in 
charge : he, however, pretended ignorance. The senators 
went out to look at it ; some exclaimed at the heinousness 
of the deed, others could not help reflecting how different 
had been the treatment of the body of Tib. Gracchus and of 
this common lictor by the oligarchs. A decree however was 
passed that the consuls should see that the state suffered no 
injury.! Opimius then directed the senators to arm them- 
selves, and ordered the knights to appear next morning early, 
each with two armed slaves. Fulvius on his side also pre- 
pared for battle. It is said that Gracchus, as he was leaving 
the Forum, stopped before his father's statue, and having 
gazed on it a long time in silence, groaned and shed tears. 
The people kept watch during the night at his house and at 
that of Fulvius; at the former in silence and anxiety, at the 
latter with drinking and revelry, Fulvius himself setting the 
example. 

In the morning Opimius, having occupied the Capitol with 
armed men, assembled the senate in the temple of Castor. 
Summonses to appear before the senate and defend themselves 
were sent to Gracchus and Fulvius ; but, instead of obeying, 
they resolved to occupy the Aventine. Fulvius having armed 
his adherents with the Gallic spoils with which he had adorn- 
ed his house after his triumph, moved toward the Aventine, 
calling the slaves in vain to liberty. Gracchus went in 
his toga, with no weapon but a small dagger. They posted 
themselves at the temple of Diana ; and, at the desire of Grac- 
chus, Fulvius sent his younger son to the senate to propose an 
accommodation. They were desired to lay down their arms 
and to come and say what they would, or to send no more 
proposals. Gracchus, it is said, was for compliance, but Ful- 
vius and the others would not yield. The youth, however, 
was sent down again ; and then Opimius, who thirsted for civil 

* Plutarch says, next morning ; but it is not likely that there could 
have been such delay. Appian makes the death of Gracchus take 
place the following day. 

t " Dent operam consules ne quid respublica detriment! capiat," was 
the form of the decree. It invested them with dictatorial power. 
26 * MM 



306 HISTORY OF ROME. 

blood, seized him as being no longer protected by his office, 
and putting himself at the head of his armed men advanced 
to the attack. The Gracchians fled without making any re- 
sistance. Fulvius took refuge in a deserted bath, whence he 
was dragged out and put to death with his eldest son. Grac- 
chus, retiring into the temple, attempted to put an end to him- 
self: but two of his friends took the weapon from him and forced 
him to fly. As he was going, it is said, he knelt down, and, 
stretching forth his hands, prayed to the goddess that the 
Roman people might be slaves forever, as a reward forjheir 
ingratitude and treachery to him, — a prayer destined to be 
accomplished! His pursuers pressing on him at the Sublici- 
an bridge, his two friends, to facilitate his escape, stood and 
maintained it against them till they were both slain. Grac- 
chus in vain prayed for some one to supply him with a horse; 
then, finding escape hopeless, he turned, with a faithful slave 
who accompanied him, into the grove of the goddess Furina, 
where he ordered his slave to despatch him : the slave obey- 
ed, and then slew himself over his body. The heads of 
Gracchus and Fulvius were cut off and brought to Opimius, 
who had promised their weight in gold for them ; and 
the person who brought the former is said to have previously 
taken out the brain and filled it with lead. Their bodies and 
those of their adherents, to the number of three thousand,'* 
were flung into the Tiber, their properties confiscated, their 
wives forbidden to put on mourning, and Licinia, the wife of 
Gracchus, was even deprived of her dower, contrary to the 
opinion of Mucius Scaevola. Opimius, by way of clemency, 
gave the young Fulvius, whom he had cast into prison, the 
choice of the mode of his death, though what his crime v/as 
it is not easy to see. To crown all, having purified the city 
by order of the senate, Opimius built a temple to Concord ! 

Plutarch compares the Gracchi with the last two kings of 
Sparta ; and the parallel between Agis and Tiberius is cer- 
tainly just. Both were actuated by the purest motives ; both 
attempted to remedy an incurable evil ; both were murdered 
by the covetous oligarchs. But Agis committed no illegal 
act, while the deposition of Octavius plainly violated the con- 
stitution. The comparison of C. Gracchus with Cleomenes is 
less just ; the Roman was the better man, though, but for his 

* Orosius, (v. 12,) who wrote from Livy , says that only 2o0 were slain 
on the Aventine, but that Opimius afterwards put to death more than 
3000 persons, without trial, who were mostly innocent. 



THE GRACCHI AND THEIR MEASURES. 307 

law increasing the power of the senate, we might say that 
he was a demagogue, like Pericles, who cared not what evil 
he introduced provided he extended his own influence. In 
talent, Caius was beyond his brother; his eloquence was of 
the highest order ; and if, as we incline to believe, his views 
were pure, he also may claim to be ranked among Rome's 
most illustrious patriots. 

With respect to the great measure of the Gracchi, the re- 
sumption of the public land, its legality is not to be questioned ; 
and the objects proposed, the relief of the people and increase 
of the free population, were most laudable. But a hundred 
and fifty years had elapsed since the conquest of Italy, during 
which there had been few or no assignments of land ; and 
such dangers are apt to arise from disturbing long possession, 
even though not strictly legal in its origin, that it is doubtful 
if in any case good could have resulted from the measure. As 
it was, the evil was beyond cure ; the Republic was verging 
to its fall, and no human skill could avail to save it. Still our 
applause is due to those who did not despair of it, and who 
manfully attempted to stem the torrent of vice and corrup- 
tion. 

Whatever rhay have been the faults of the Gracchi and 
their friends, the nobility have little claim on our sympathy ; 
for they used their victory with the greatest insolence and cru- 
elty. When they had glutted their vengeance, they began to 
think of their interest : a law was passed allowing those who 
had received lands under the Sempronian law, to sell them, 
and the rich soon had them again by purchase, or under that 
pretext. Sp. Thorius, a tribune, then (645) directed that no 
more land should be divided ; that those who held it should 
keep it, on payment of a quit-rent, to be annually distributed 
among the people, — a measure which, though it might re- 
lieve the poor, had no effect on the increase of the free pop- 
ulation, the great object of Tib. Gracchus. This, however, 
was not pleasing to the oligarchs : so another tribune, to grat- 
ify them, did away with the quit-rents altogether ; and thus 
ended all the hopes of the people. 

It is remarkable that, at the time the Roman people were thus 
voting away their rights, they actually had the ballot, and, we 
may say, universal suffrage. In 614 Q,. Gabinius, a tribune 
of low birth, had a tabellarian^ law passed, by which the 
people were to vote with tablets on the election of magistrates ; 

* So named from the wooden tablets with which they gave their votes. 



303 HISTORY OF ROME. 

in 618, L. Cassius, the well-known rigid judge, when tribune, 
extended this principle to trials ; and in 622, C. Papirius C^- 
bo further extended it to the voting on laws : * yet we see of 
how little avail it was. Cicero t remarks that after it was in- 
troduced more state criminals escaped than when the people 
voted openly ; and we know how such acquittals were obtained 
by the plunderers of the provinces. 

L. Opimius was accused in 632, by the tribune Q,. Decius, 
for having put citizens to death without trial ; and it is rath- 
er startling to find the consul of that year, C. Papirius Carbo, 
the friend of the Gracchi, exerting his eloquence (in which he 
excelled) in his defence, and maintaining that C. Gracchus 
had been justly slain. Opimius of course was acquitted. This 
change of party did not, however, avail Carbo: he was pros- 
ecuted the next year (683) by the young orator L. Crassus, 
for his share, as it would seem, in the measures of the Grac- 
chi, and seeing no prospect of escape he put an end to his 
own life. 

Having concluded the narrative of this first civil discord, 
we will cast a glance over the foreign affairs of the state at 
this period. 

When Attalus of Pergamus left his kingdom to the Ro- 
man people, (619,) his natural brother Aristonicus took up 
arms to assert his claim to it. There was perhaps some 
doubt in the senate as to the justice of their cause ; for it was 
not till two years after (621) that Asia was decreed as a prov- 
ince to the consul P. Licinius Crassus, who, though he was 
chief pontiff, and therefore bound not to leave Italy, led an 
army thither. But thinking more on booty than war, he was 
defeated and made a prisoner in a battle fought near Smyrna, 
and he was put to death by the victor. Aristonicus, however, 
was forced to surrender (623) to M. Perperna, and the king- 
dom of Attalus became a Roman province under the title 
of Asia. 

In 627 the consul Fulvius, as above related, led an army to 
the aid of the Massilians ao-ainst the Salluvian Gauls. The con- 
sul C. Sextius (628) gave this people a defeat at a place, af- 
terwards named from him and its warm springs, Aquge Sextise, 
(Aix.) The Allobroges and Arvernians were next attacked, 
under the pretence of their having given shelter to the king 

^ Cicero, Laws, iii. 16. 

t Laws, iii. 17. The rule he here gives is as follows ; '■'■ Optiviatihus 
nota, plebi libera sunto (suffragia.") 



THE JUGURTHINE WAR. 309 

of the Salluvians, and having ravaged the lands of the ^du- 
ans, who were the allies of Rome. They were reduced 
(630) by the consul Cn. Domitius. The next year Q,. Fabi- 
ijs Maximus, the colleague of Opimius, gained a great victo- 
ry over the Allobroges, whose king, Betultus, having gone to 
Rome to excuse himself to the senate, was detained, and 
placed in custody at Alba, and directions were sent to bring 
his son to Rome also, as their presence in Gaul was danger- 
ous. In 634 the colony of Narbo Marcius (Narbonne) was 
founded by Q,. Marcius Rex, and the Roman dominion in 
Gaul now extended to the Pyrenees. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE JUGURTHINE WAR. DEFEAT AND DEATH OF ADHERBAL. 

BESTIA IN AFRICA. JUGURTHA AT ROME. DEFEAT OF 

AULUS. METELLUS IN AFRICA. ATTACK ON ZAMA. — • 

NEGOTIATIONS WITH JUGURTHA. TAKING OP THALA. 

CAIUS MARIUS. TAKING OF CAPSA. TAKING OF THE 

CASTLE ON THE MULUCHA. SULLA AND BOCCHUS. DE- 
LIVERY UP OF JUGURTHA. HIS END. CIMBRIC WAR. 

VICTORY AT AQUJ3 SEXTIiE. VICTORY AT VERCELL^. 

INSURRECTION OF THE SLAVES IN SICILY. 

A WAR now broke out which, as narrated by an excellent 
historian,* displays in an appalling manner the abandoned 
profligacy and corruption of the Roman nobility at this time. 

Micipsa, king of Numidia, died, (634,) leaving two sons, 
Adherbal and Hiempsal, with whom he joined his nephew, 
Jugurtha, the son of Manastabal, as a partner in the kingdom. 
Jugurtha was a young man of talent, highly popular with 
the army, ambitious, and hungering after dominion v/ith the 
avidity Vv^hich has at all times characterized Eastern and 
African princes, and like them unscrupulous as to means. 
He had been incited by many Romans of rank whom he 
was intimate with at Numantia, to seize the kingdom on the 
death of Micipsa, and assured by them that money was 
omnipotent at Rome. Accordingly he soon had Hiempsal, 

* C. Sallustius Crispus. 



310 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the more spirited of the two princes, murdered ; and, when 
Adherbal took up arms to defend himself, he defeated him 
and drove him out of his kingdom. 

Adherbal repaired to Rome, whither he was followed by 
envoys from Jugurtha, bearing plenty of gold and silver, 
which they distributed to such effect, that when the senate 
had heard both parties, they decreed that ten commissioners 
should go out to divide the realm of Micipsa between Ad- 
herbal and Jugurtha ! L. Opimius was at the head of the 
commission, (635,) and Jugurtha plied him and most of his 
colleagues so well with gifts and promises, that the far more 
valuable half was given to him ; and so convinced was he 
now of the venality of every one at Rome, that they were 
hardly gone when he invaded and plundered Adherbal's 
dominions, hoping thus to provoke him to a war. But Ad- 
herbal, a quiet, timid prince, contented himself with sending 
an embassy to complain of the injury. Jugurtha replied by 
reentering his realm at the head of a large army. Adherbal 
assembled an army ; but Jugurtha fell on his camp, near the 
town of Cirta, in the night, and cut his troops to pieces. 
Adherbal fled to Cirta, which would have been taken, but 
that there happened to be in it a great number of Italian 
traders, who manned the walls and defended it. Jugurtha, 
aware that Adherbal had sent to Rome, pressed on the siege 
with all his might, hoping to take the town before any one 
could come to prevent him. Three commissioners, how- 
ever, arrived, with orders for the kings to abstain from war, 
and decide their quarrel by equity. Jugurtha, alleging that 
he had taken up arms, in self-defence, as Adherbal had 
plotted against his life, said he would send envoys to Rome 
to explain all matters. The commissioners then went away, 
not having been allowed to see Adherbal, and Jugurtha 
urged on the siege more vigorously than ever. 

Two of Adherbal's follovv^ers, however, made their way 
through the camp of the besiegers, and brought a letter from 
him to the senate. Some were for sending an army to 
Africa ; but the influence of Jugurtha's party succeeded in 
having only a commission appointed, composed however of 
men of the highest rank, among whom was M, ^Emilius 
Scaurus, at that time the chief of the senate, a man of talents 
of a high order, but of insatiable avarice and ambition. On 
arriving at Utica they sent orders to Jugurtha to come to 
them in the province ; and having made one more desperate 
but fruitless effort to storm the town, he obeyed, fearing to 



THE JUGURTHINE WAR. 311 

irritate Scaurus. But the interview was of no effect, for, 
after wasting words in vain, the commissioners went home. 
It would perhaps have been better for Adlierbal if they had 
not come at all ; for the Italians in Cirta, convinced that the 
power of Rome would be a security to them, insisted on his 
surrendering the town, only stipulating for his life ; and, 
though he knew how little reliance was to be placed on 
Jugurtha's faith, he yielded, as it was in their power to 
compel him. Jugurtha first put Adherbal to death, with 
torture, and then made a promiscuous slaughter of the male 
inhabitants, the Italian traders included, (640.) 

Jugurtha's pensioners at Rome attempted to gloss over 
even this atrocious deed ; but C. Memmius, a tribune elect, 
in his harangues to the people, so exposed the motives of 
those who advocated his cause, that the senate grew alarmed, 
and by the Sempronian law Numidia was assigned as one of 
the provinces of the future consuls. It fell to L. Calpurnius 
Bestia, (641;) an army was levied, and all preparations made 
for war. Jugurtha was not a little surprised when he heard 
of this. He sent his son and two of his friends as envoys to 
Rome, to bribe as before ; but they were ordered to quit 
Italy, unless they were come to make a surrender of Jugur- 
tha and his kingdom. They therefore returned without 
having effected any thing. The consul, who, like so many 
others, was a slave to avarice, having selected as his legates 
Scaurus and some other men of influence, whose authority, 
he hoped, would defend him if he acted wrong, passed over 
to Africa with his troops, and made a brisk inroad into 
Numidia. Jugurtha, instead of trying the chance of war, 
assailed him by large offers of money, displaying at the same 
time the difficulties of the war ; and Scaurus, whose prudence 
had hitherto been proof against all his offers, yielded at last, 
and went hand in hand- with the consul. They agreed to a 
peace with him ; he came to the camp and made a surrender 
of himself, and delivered to the qusestor thirty elephants, a 
good number of horses and cattle for the army, and a small 
quantity of money. Bestia then went to Rome to hold the 
elections, as his colleague was dead. 

The senate were dubious how to act; the disgraceful 
transaction was vehemently reprobated by the people, but 
the authority of Scaurus was great with them. Memmius 
seized the occasion of assailing the nobility ; he detailed 
their acts of cruelty and oppression, he exposed their avarice, 
venality, and corruption, and he finally succeeded in having 



312 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the praetor L. Cassiua sent to Africa to bring Jugurtha to 
Rome, in order to convict Scaurus and the others by his 
evidence. Cassius having pledged the public faith and his 
own, (which was of equal weight,) for his safety, Jugurtha 
came with him to Rome, (642.) Here, besides his former 
friends, he gained C. Baebius, one of Memmius' colleagues ; 
and when Memmius produced him before the people, and, 
having enumerated all his crimes, called on him to name 
those who had aided and abetted him in them, Baebius 
ordered him not to answer. The people were furious, but 
Baebius heeded them not ; and Jugurtha soon ventured on 
another murder. 

There was at Rome a cousin of his, named Massiva, the 
son of Gulussa, whom the consul elect, Sp. Postumius Al- 
binus, anxious for the glory of a war, persuaded to apply to 
the senate for the kingdom of Numidia. Jugurtha, seeing 
him likely to succeed, desired his confidant, Bomilcar, to 
have him put out of the way. Assassins were then, as in 
more modern times, easily to be procured at Rome. Mas- 
siva was slain, but his murderer, on being seized, informed 
against Bomilcar, who, more in accordance with equity than 
with the law of nations, was arrested. Fifty of Jugurtha's 
friends gave bail for him ; but Jugurtha, finding this to be a 
case beyond his money, sent him away, heedless of his bail, 
for he feared that his other subjects would be less zealous to 
serve him if he let Bomilcar suffer. In a few days he him- 
self was ordered to quit Italy. It is said that as he was 
going out of Rome he turned back, and gazing on it, said, 
" Venal city, and soon to perish if a purchaser were to be 
found ! " 

Albinus passed over to Africa without delay ; but, with all 
his diligence, he was baffled by Jugurtha, who never would 
give an opportunity of fighting, and kept illuding him with 
offers of surrender. Many people suspected that the consul 
and he understood one another. The elections beinor at 
hand, Albinus returned to Rome, leaving his brother Aulus 
in command of the army. A delay having occurred, in 
consequence of two of the tribunes wanting to remain in 
ofSce, in opposition to their colleagues, Aulus, hoping to 
end the war, or extort money from Jugurtha, led out his 
troops in the month of January, (643,) and by long marches 
came to a town named Suthul, where the royal treasures lay. 
The town was strong by nature and art : Jugurtha mocked 
at the folly of the legate, and, by holding out hopes of sur- 



METELLUS IN AFRICA. 313 

render, drew him away from it. By bribes he gamed some 
of the centurions and captains of horse to promise to desert, 
others to quit their posts : he then suddenly assailed the 
camp in the night ; a centurion admitted him ; the Romans 
fled to an adjacent hill, where they were obliged to surrender, 
pass under the yoke, and engage to evacuate Numidia within 
ten days. 

Grief, terror, and indignation prevailed at Rome when this 
disgraceful treaty was known. The senate, as was always 
the case, pronounced it not to be binding. Albinus hastened 
to Africa, burning to efface the shame; but he found the 
troops in such a state of indiscipline that he could not ven- 
ture on any operations. At Rome, the tribune C. Mamilius 
Limetanus took advantage of the state of public feeling, to 
bring in a bill for inquiring into the conduct of those who 
had advised Jugurtha to neglect the decrees of the senate, 
and of those who had taken bribes from him, had given him 
back the elephants and deserters, or made treaties with him. 
The nobility, conscious of their guilt, strained every nerve 
against the bill ; the people, more out of hatred to them than 
regard for the republic, urged it on and passed it. Strange 
to say, Scaurus, one of the most guilty, had influence enough 
to have himself chosen among the three inquisitors whom 
the bill appointed. The inquiry was prosecuted with great 
asperity, the people being delighted to have an opportunity 
of humbling the nobility ; common fame was deemed suffi- 
cient evidence, and Opimius, Bestia, Albinus and others, 
were condemned. 

Albinus' successor (643) was Q,. Csecilius Metellus, a man 
who was an honor to his order, of high talents, of stainless 
integrity, of pure morals ; his only defect was pride, " the 
common evil of the nobility," as the historian observes. He 
found the army as Scipio Africanus had found his at Car- 
thage and Numantia, and he employed the same means to 
restore its discipline. Jugurtha, aware of the kind of man 
he had to deal with, and that there was now no room for 
bribes, began to think of submission in earnest, and he sent 
envoys offering a surrender, and stipulating only for the 
lives of himself and his children. But Metellus, knowing 
there would be no peace in Africa while Jugurtha lived, 
treated with the envoys separately, and by large promises 
induced some of them to engage to deliver him up alive or 
dead : in public he gave them an ambiguous reply. 

In a few days he entered Numidia, but saw no signs of 

27 NN . 



314 HISTORY OF ROME. 

war ; the peasantry and their cattle were in the fields, the 
governors of towns came forth to meet him, and furnished 
every thing he demanded. He put a garrison into a large 
town named Vaga, which was a place of great trade, and 
would therefore be of advantage if the war was to continue. 
Meantime Jugurtha sent a still more pressing embassy ; but 
Metellus, as before, engaged the envoys to betray him, and, 
without promising or refusing him the peace he sought, 
waited for them to perform their engagements. 

Jugurtha, finding himself assailed by his own arts, and 
that all hopes were illusive, resolved once more to try the 
fate of arms. Learning that Metellus was on his march for 
a river named Muthul, he placed his troops in ambush on a 
hill near it, by which the Roman army had to pass ; but the 
wild olives and myrtles among which they lay did not suffi- 
ciently conceal them, and Metellus had time to prepare for 
action. Jugurtha displa3ed all the talent of an able general, 
but his troops were far inferior in quality to those to which 
they were opposed, and, after a hard-fought contest, a com- 
plete victory remained with the Romans. Having given his 
men four days' rest, Metellus led them into the best parts of 
Numidia, where he laid waste the fields, took and burned 
towns and castles, putting all the males to the sword, and 
giving the plunder to his soldiers. Numbers of places 
therefore submitted and received garrisons, and Jugurtha 
became greatly terrified at this mode of conducting the war. 
Aware that nothing was to be hoped from a general action, 
he left the army he had assembled where it was, and, placing 
himself at the head of a select body of horse, hovered about 
the Romans, attacking them when scattered, and destroying 
the forage and the springs of water. These desultory attacks 
greatly harassed the Roman troops ; and, as the only means 
of forcing Jugurtha to an action, Metellus resolved to lay 
siege to the large and strong town of Zama. Jugurtha, 
learning his design from deserters, hastened thither before 
him, and conjured the townsmen to hold out bravely, prom- 
ising to come with an army to their relief, and leaving them 
the deserters to assist in the defence. 

Metellus, on coming before Zama, attempted a storm : in 
the heat of the engagement Jugurtha made a sudden attack 
on the Roman camp and broke into it ; the soldiers fled in 
dismay toward those who were attacking the town. Me- 
tellus sent his legate Marius with the horse and some cohorts 
of the allies to the defence of the camp.,- and the Numidians 



NEGOTIATIONS WITH JUGURTHA, 315 

were driven out with loss. Next day, when they would 
renew the attack, they found the horse prepared to receive 
them. A smart cavalry action commenced and lasted all 
through the day, and at the same time the town was 
gallantly attacked and defended : night ended the conflict. 

Metellus, seeing that there was no chance of takincr the 
town, or of making Jugurtha fight, except when and where 
he pleased, and that the summer was at an end, raised the 
siege and led his troops into the province for the winter. 
He then renewed his secret dealings with Jugurtha's friends; 
and having induced even Bomilcar to come to him privately, 
he engaged him, by a promise of pardon from the senate, to 
undertake to deliver up his master. Bomilcar took the first 
opportunity to urge Jugurtha to a surrender, by picturing 
to him the wretched condition to which he was reduced, 
and the danger of the Numidians making terms for them- 
selves without him. Envoys were therefore sent to Metellus, 
offering an unconditional surrender. Metellus, having as- 
sembled all the senators who were in Africa, and other fit 
persons, held a council after the Roman usage, and with their 
concurrence sent orders to Jugurtha to deliver up 200,000 
pounds of silver, all his elephants, and a part of his horses 
and arms. This being done, he ordered him to send him 
the deserters : all were brought, except a few who had time 
to make their escape to the Moorish king Bocchus. Jugur- 
tha was then directed to repair to the town of Tisidium, 
there to learn his fate; but his guilty conscience made him 
hesitate, and after fluctuating a few days he resolved once 
more to try the fortune of war.. The senate continued Me- 
tellus in his command as proconsul, (644.) 

Jugurtha now strained every nerve. At his instigation 
the people of Vaga treacherously massacred the Roman gar- 
rison ; but they paid the penalty of their crime within two- 
days; for when Metellus heard of it, he took what troops he 
had with him, set out in the night, came on the Vagenses by 
surprise, slaughtered them, and gave tlie town up to plunder. 
About this time Bomilcar's plans failed. He had associated 
with hitnself a man of high rank named l^bdalsa, to whom 
he wrote a letter urging immediate action. Nabdalsa, lying 
down to rest, put the letter on his pillow, and his secretary 
coming into the tent while he was asleep, took and read it. 
He immediately hastened Ao give Jugurtha information. 
Nabdalsa was saved by his rank and his protestations of his 
intention to reveal the plot, but Bomilcar and several others 



316 HIST(3RY OF ROME. 

were put to death ; some fled to the Romans, same to Boc- 
chus, king of the GfietuJians, and Jugurtha remained with- 
out any one in whom he could place confidence, haunted by 
fear and suspicion. In this condition he was forced to an 
action, and defeated by Metellus. He fled to a large town 
named Thala ; whither Metellus, though there was no water 
to be had for the space of fifty miles, resolved to pursue him.. 
He collected vessels of every kind, which he filled at the near- 
est river, and he ordered the Numidians to convey supplies 
of water to a place which he designated. When he reached 
that place a copious rain fell, and he thus came before Tha- 
la, from which Jugurtha fled in the night with a part of his 
treasure. After a siege of forty days the town was taken ; 
but the deserters had collected the things of most value into 
the palace, and then, after feasting and drinking, set fire to it 
and perished in the flames. Jugurtha now sought to arm the 
Gsetulians in his cause, and he prevailed on Bocchus, whose 
daughter was among his wives, to form an alliance with him. 
Such was the condition of the war when (645) the consul 
Marius came out to supersede Metellus. 

C. Marius * was the son of a small proprietor at Arpinum 
in the Volscian country ; he entered the army when young, 
and distinguished himself by his courage, his military skill, 
his temperance, and other qualities becoming a good soldier. 
He rose through the inferior grades of the service, and was 
at length appointed by the people, who hardly knew him but 
by fame, to be a military tribune ; he served under Scipio at 
Numantia, (thus he and Jugurtha were fellow-soldiers,) and 
that able man foretold, it is said, his future eminence. In the year 
633 he was made a tribune of the people, and he had a law 
passed to lessen the influence of the nobility at elections, and 
another abrogating that by which corn was ordered to be 
sold to the people at a reduced price, — certainly no dema- 
gogic measure : but the hardy peasant probably saw, that an 
idle town-population could not but be injurious to the state. 
He then stood for both sedileships in the one day, and failed, 
but undismayed he shortly after sought the praetorship, and 
gained it, though he was accused of having used unfair means. 
He next had, as proprEetor, the government of Ulterior Spain, 
which he cleared of the bands of robbers that infested it. 
Marius married into the noble family of the Julii ; and his 
character stood so high, that Metellus, when appointed to 
Numidia, made him one of his legates. 

* Sef Plutarch, Marius. 



CAIUS MARIUS. 31 7 

The gieat object of Marius' ambition was the consulate ; 
but this was an office which had hitherto been the exclusive 
property of the nobility, to which no new man,^' be his merit 
what it might, had ever dreamed of aspiring. Marius howev- 
er knew that the times were changed, and that the people would 
gladly seize an occasion to spite the nobility. Vulgar minds 
are commonly superstitious ; that of Marius was eminently so, 
and it happened that as he was sacrificing, when in winter quar- 
ters at Utica, the haruspex declared that mighty things were 
portended to him, and bade him rely on the gods and do 
what he was thinking of He instantly applied to Metellus 
for leave to go-to Rome to sue for the consulate. 'The proud 
noble could not conceal his amazement ; by way of friend- 
ship he advised him to moderate his ambition, and seek only 
what was within his reach ; telling him, however, that he would 
give him leave when the public service permitted it. Marius 
applied again and again to no effect; he then became exas- 
perated, and had recourse to all the vulgar modes of gaining 
favor with the various classes of men ; he relaxed the discipline 
of his soldiers ; to the Italian traders, of whom there was a 
great number at Utica, and to whom the war was very injuri- 
ous, he threw the whole blame of its continuance on the 
general's love of power, adding that if he had but one half 
of the army he would soon have Jugurtha in chains. There 
was moreover in the Roman quarters a brother of Jugurtha's, 
named Gauda, a man of weak mind, but to whom Micipsa 
had left the kingdom in remainder, who was at this time highly 
offended because Metellus had refused him a guard of Roman 
horse and a seat of honor beside himself While he was in 
this mood Marius accosted him, exaggerated the affront he 
had received, called him a great man, who would with- 
out doubt be kino- of Numidia if Juo-urtha were taken or 
slain, as he would be if he were consul. The consequence was 
that all these people wrote to their friends at Rome, inveighing 
against Metellus, and desirinop the command to be transferred 
to Marius. 

Metellus, having delayed Marius as long as he could, at 
length let him go home. He was received with high favor 
by the people ; he was extolled, Metellus abused ; the one 
was a noble, the other, one of themselves, the man of the peo- 
ple ; party spirit is always blind to the defects of its favorites,t 

* A novus homo, or ' new man,' was one in whose family there had 
been no curule dignity, and who therefore had no images. 

t Political partisans are, in this, like lovers. '< Mr. Wilks squints no 

21* 



318 HISTORY OF ROME. 

and the merits of its adversaries. The tribunes harangued ; 
the peasants and the workmen of the city neglected their 
business to support Marius ; the nobility were defeated, and 
he was made consul. The senate had already decreed Nu- 
midia to Metelius ; but they were to be further humbled ; a 
tribune asked the people whom they would have to conduct 
the war with Jugurtha, and they replied, Marius.* 

The new consul set no bounds to his insolent exultation ; 
he made incessant attacks on th^ nobility, vaunting that he 
had won the consulate from them as spoils from a vanquished 
enemy. The senate dared refuse none of his demands for 
the war ; they even cheerfully decreed a levy, thinking that 
the people would be unwilling to serve, and that Marius 
would thus sink in their favor. But it was quite the contrary ; 
all were eager to go and gain fame and plunder under Marius ; 
who, having held an assembly, in which as usual he inveighed 
against the nobility and extolled himself, commenced his 
levy. In this he set the pernicious example of taking any 
that offered, mostly Capite-censi, instead of raising them in 
the old way from the classes:! he knew that those who had 
nothing to lose, and all to gain, were best suited to a man 
greedy of power and indifferent to the welfare of his country. 
Having thus raised more than had been decreed, he passed over 
to Africa, where the army was given up to him by the legate 
Rutilius, as the proud spirit of Metelius could not brook the 
sight of his insolent rival. Yet so variable is the multitude, 
so really just when left to itself, that Metelius was received 
with as much favor by the people as by the senate on his re- 
turn, and he obtained a triumph and the title of Numidicus 
as the true conqueror of Numidia.| 

Marius displayed great energy and activity; he laid the 
whole country waste, and forced the two kings to keep at a 
distance. Aware, like Metelius, that it was only by taking his 
towns he could reduce Jugurtha, and desirous of performing 
some feat to rival that of the capture of Thala, he fixed on a 
town named Capsa, similarly situated, but with this difference, 
that while there were springs outside of the former, there 
was but one at the latter, and that within the walls. Having 

more than a gentleman ought to do, " said an admirer of that remarka- 
ble man. 

* This was a manifest violation of the Sempronian la'v. See above, 
p. 303. 

t Not those of Servius ; see above, p. 172. \ 

X Velleius Paterculus, ii. 11. 



SULLA AND BOCCHUS. 319 

made his men load themselves and the beasts, mostly with 
skins of water at the river Tama, he set forth at nightfall, not 
saying whither he was going; and resting by day and march- 
ing by night, he reached before day on the third morning a 
range of hills within two miles of Capsa ; and when it was 
day, and the people were come out of the town, he ordered 
his horse and light troops to rush for the gates. In this way 
the town was forced to capitulate ; but, contrary to the laws 
of nations, the grown males were put to the sword, the 
rest sold, the plunder given to the soldiers, and the town 
burnt. 

This fortunate piece of temerity, for it was nothing better, 
greatly magnified the fame of Marius, and scarcely any 
place ventured to resist him. He now proceeded to another 
act of similar fool-hardiness. There was near the river Mu- 
lucha a strong castle, on a single rock in the plain, in which 
the royal treasures were deposited. It was well supplied 
with men, arms, and provisions, and had a good spring of 
water ; one single narrow path led up to it from the plain, na- 
ture having secured it on all other sides. Marius spent sever- 
al days before it ; and having lost some of his best men to no 
purpose, he was thinking of retiring, when fortune again stood 
his friend. A Ligurian, seeing some snails on the back part 
of the rock, climbed up to get them, and going higher and high- 
er as he saw them, he at length reached the summit. He de- 
scended again, carefully noting the way, and then went and 
informed the consul of his discovery. Marius resolved to 
take advantage of it ; he sent with the Ligurian five trum- 
peters and four centurions, who climbed up while he kept 
the garrison occupied by an attack. Suddenly the Roman 
trumpets were heard to sound above them, and the women 
and children were seen flying down ; Marius then urged on 
his men, the wall was scaled, and the fort carried. 

About this time the qusBstor L. Cornelius Sulla,* afterwards 
so renowned, arrived in the camp with a large body of horse, 
to raise which he had been left in Italy. Jugurtha having 
induced Bocchus, with a promise of a third of his kingdom, 
to aid him effectually, their combined forces fell one evening 
on the Romans as they were marching to their winter quar- 
ters. The Romans were forced to retire to two neighboring 

* Sulla, not Sylla, is the orthography of all good writers. The Latin 
language had no ?/ in it at this time. Sulla, i. e. surula, is said to be a 
diminutive of swa. 



320 HlSTOllY OF ROME. 

hills, around which the barbarians bivouacked ; but to- 
ward morning, when they were mostly asleep, the Romans 
sounded their trumpets and rushed down and slaughtered 
them. In the neighborhood of Cirta, four days after, the two 
kings ventured on another attack ; but they were again routed 
with great loss. The consul then went into quarters for the 
winter at Cirta, whither envoys came from ^occhus, request- 
ing that two trusty persons might be sent to confer with him. 
Maiius committed the affair to Sulla and the legate Manlius; 
and the arguments of the former had no little effect on the 
king, who soon after sent five other envoys to Marius. They 
were so unlucky as to fall in with robbers on their way, by 
whom they were stript and plundered ; but Sulla, who com- 
manded in the absence of Marius, treated them with great kind- 
ness ; and on the return of the consul a council was assem- 
bled, and three of the envoys were, as Bocchus had desired, 
sent to Rome, where the senate granted him the friendship 
and alliance which he sought, provided he should deserve it. 

Bocchus then desired that Sulla might be sent to him. Sulla 
went (646) with a slight escort, and having run no small risk 
of being captured or slain by Jugurtha, through whose camp he 
had to pass, reached the Moorish territories. By employing all 
the arts of a skilful negotiator, and working on the hopes and 
fears of the king, he at length engaged him to betray Jugur- 
tha. The crafty Numidian was lured to a conference, and 
there seized and delivered up to Sulla. Marius remained in 
Africa as proconsul for two years. He was chosen consul a 
second time in his absence, and he triumphed on the kalends 
of January, (648,) the day of his entering on office. Jugur- 
tha adorned his triumph, and at its conclusion was thrust 
nearly naked into a dungeon. " Hercules ! " said he, with a 
forced smile, as he entered it, " what a cold bath you have !" 
He was there left to perish by hunger, and his guilty life 
ended on the sixth day. 

The cause of Marius being raised a second time to the 
consulate, in violation of rule and precedent, was an immi- 
nent danger which menaced the republic from the north, 
and which he alone was judged able to avert. 

In the year 639 intelligence reached Rome of the approach 
of a barbarous people named Cimbrians to the north-eastern 
frontier of Italy. This people is supposed to have inhabited 
the peninsula of Jutland, and those parts which afterwards 
sent forth the Anglo-Saxon conquerors of England. At 
this time, urged by some of the causes which usually set bar- 



CIMBRIC WAR. 321 

barous tribes in motion, they resolved to migrate southwards. 
The consul Cn. Papirius Carbo gave them battle in the 
modern Carinthia, but he sustained a defeat. The barbari- 
ans, instead of advancing into Italy, turned back, and being 
joined by a German people named the Teutones, poured into 
Southern Gaul, where (643) they defeated the consul M. Ju- 
nius Silanus. The next year the consul M. Aurelius Scaurus 
had a similar fate ; and in the following year (645) the con- 
sul L. Cassius Longinus was defeated and slain by the Tigu- 
rinians, a Helvetic people who had joined the Cirabrians, and 
the remnant of his army had to pass under the yoke to escape 
destruction. Q,, Servilius Csepio, the consul of the year 
646, turned his arms, as the Cimbrians appear to have been 
in Spain, against the Tectosages, and plundered their capital 
Tolosa (Toulouse) of its sacred treasure, which he diverted 
to his own use. Caepio was continued the next year in his 
command ; and as the Cimbrians were returned from Spain, 
the consul Cn. Manlius led his army into Gaul ; but he and 
Caepio, instead of uniting their forces, wrangled and quar- 
relled with each other, and kept separate camps on different 
sides of the Rhone; in consequence of which both their ar- 
mies were literally annihilated by the barbarians, who now 
seem to have seriously thought of invading Italy. It was at 
this conjuncture that Marius was made consul a second 
time. 

The Cimbrians however returned to Spain, where they re- 
mained during this and the following year. Marius, who 
was made consul a third time, (649,) employed himself chief- 
ly in restoring the discipline of the army ; and Sulla, who 
was his legate the first and a tribune the second year, dis- 
played his diplomatic talent now in Gaul as before in Numidia, 
and thus augmented the envy and hatred with which the 
rude, ferocious consul regarded him. His colleague happening 
to die just before the elections, Marius went to Rome to hold 
them, and there his friend the tribune L. Apuleius Saturni- 
nus, as had been arranged between them, proposed him for 
consul a fourth time. Marius affected to decline the honor ; 
Saturninus called him a traitor to his country if he refused 
to serve her in the time of her peril ; the scene was well 
acted between them, and Marius was made consul with Q,. 
Lutatius Catulus, (650.) 

The province of Gaul was decreed to both the consuls ; 
and as the barbarians were now returned fr:>m Spain and 
had divided their forces, the Cimbrians moving to enter 

o o 



322 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Italy on the north-east, the Teutones and Ambrones from 
Gaul, Marius crossed the Alps, and fortified a strong camp on 
the banks of the Rhone, that he might raise the spirit of his 
men, and accustom them to the sight of the huge bodies and 
ferocious mien of the barbarians. He refused all their chal- 
lenges to fight, and contented himself with repelling their 
assaults on his camp ; and at last the barbarians, giving up all 
hopes of forcing him to action, resolved to cross the Alps, 
leaving him behind them. We are told that they spent six 
days in marching by the Roman camp, and that as they vt^ent 
they jeeringly asked the soldiers if they had any messages to 
send to their vi^ives. Marius then broke up his camp, and fol- 
lowed them, keeping on the high grounds till he came to Aquas 
Sextiae. He here chose for his camp an eminence where 
there was no water, and when his soldiers complained he 
pointed to a stream running by the enemies' camp, and told 
them they must buy it there with their blood. " Lead us on 
then at once while our blood is warm !" cried they. "We 
must first secure our camp," coolly replied the general. 

The camp servants, taking with them axes, hatchets, and 
some spears and swords for their defence, went down to 
the stream to water the beasts, and they drove oiF such of 
the enemies as they met. The noise roused the Ambrones, 
who, though they were full after a meal, put on their armor 
and crossed the stream ; the Ligurians advanced to engage 
them, some more Roman troops succeeded, and the Am- 
brones were driven back to their wagons with loss. This 
check irritated the barbarians exceedingly, and the Romans 
passed the night in anxiety, expecting an attack. In the 
morning Marius, having sent Claudius Marcellus with 3000 
men to occupy a woody hill in the enemy's rear, prepared 
to give battle. The impatient barbarians charged up-hill ; 
the Romans, with the advantage of the ground, drove them 
back, Marcellus fell on their rear, and the rout was soon 
complete: the slain and the captives were, it is said, not less 
than 100,000. As Marius after the battle stood with a 
torch, in the act of setting fire to a pile of their arms, mes- 
sengers arrived with tidings of his being chosen consul for 
the fifth time. 

Catulus, meantime, had not been equally fortunate : not 
thinking it safe to divide his forces for defending the passes 
of the Alps, he retired behind the Atesis, (Adige,) securing 
the fords, and having a bridge in front of his position to 
communicate with the country on the other side. But when 



VICTORY OF VERCELL^. 323 

the Cimbrians poured down from the Alps, and were be- 
ginning to fill up the bed of the river, his soldiers grew 
alarmed, and, unable to retain them, he led them back, 
abandoning the plain of the Po to the barbarians. Catulus 
was continued in his command as proconsul the next year, 
(651 :) his deficiency of military talent was made up for by 
the ability of L. Sulla, who had left Marias to join him. 
Marius, who was at Rome, instead of triumphing as was 
expected, summoned his troops from Gaul, and proceeded to 
unite them with those of Catulus, hoping to have the glory 
of a second victory ; and when the battle took place in the 
neighborhood of Vercellae, he placed his own troops on the 
wings, and those of Catulus in the centre, which he threw 
back in order that they might have as little share as possible 
in the action. But his manoeuvre was a failure, for an im- 
mense cloud of dust rising, which prevented the troops from 
seeing each other, Marius in his charge left the enemy at 
one side, and the brunt of the battle fell on the troops of 
Catulus. The dust was of advantage to the Romans, as it 
prevented their seeing the number of their foes : the heat of 
the weather, (it being now July,) exhausted the barbarians, 
and they were obliged to give way, and as their front ranks 
had bound themselves together by chains from their waists, 
they could not escape. A dreadful spectacle presented 
itself when the Romans drove them to their line of wagons ; 
the women rushed out, fell on the fugitives, and then slew 
themselves and their children ; the men too put an end to 
themselves in various ways : the captives amounted to 60,000, 
the slain to double the number. Marius and Catulus tri- 
umphed together, and though the former had had little share 
in the victory, his rank, and the fame of his former one, 
caused this also to be ascribed to him ; the multitude called 
him the third founder of Rome, and poured out libations to 
him with the gods at their meals. He would have triumphed 
alone but for fear of Catulus' soldiers ; and, as we shall see, 
he never forgave him his victory.* 

One evil of great magnitude which resulted from this war 
was, the great number of slaves that it dispersed over the 
Roman dominions ; and at this very time those of Sicily 
were again in insurrection. Under the guidance of a slave, 

* The details of the battle are only to be found in Plutarch, (Marius,) 
whose authority were Sulla's Qwn Memoirs, and therefore must be 
received with some suspicion. 



324 HISTORY OF ROME. 

named Salvias, who assumed the name of Trypho and the 
royal dignity, they defeated the Roman officers. In another 
part of the island the slaves made one Athenio, a Cilician, 
their king, but he submitted to Trypho, after whose death 
he had the supreme command. At length (651) the consul 
M. Aquilius slew Athenio with his own hand in an engage- 
ment, and suppressed the rebellion. 



CHAPTER III.* 

STATE OF ROME. TRIBUNATE OF SATURNINUS. HIS SEDI- 
TION AND DEATH. RETURN OF METELLUS. TRIBUNATE 

AND DEATH OF DRUSUS. SOCIAL OR MARSIC WAR. 

MURDER OF THE PR^.TOR BY THE USURERS. SEDITION OF 

MARIUS AND SULPICIUS. SULLA AT ROME. FLIGHT OF 

MARIUS. 

The cruelty with which the nobility had used their victory 
over the Gracchi, and the scandalous corruption and profli- 
gacy which they had exhibited in the case of Jugurtha, had 
greatly exasperated the people against them, and alienated 
from them the affections of the lovers of justice and honor. 
Ambitious and revengeful men took advantage of this state 
of feelincr to have themselves made tribunes, and to have 
measures passed injurious to the nobles as a body, or as 
individuals. Caepio, who had attempted to modify Gracchus' 
law, which deprived the senators of the right of being judges, 
was, after his defeat by the Cimbrians, deprived of his com- 
mand, and his estate was confiscated, and the following year, 
(648,) the tribune C. Cassius Longinus had a bill passed, 
(levelled at him,) prohibiting any one who had been deposed 
by the people from sitting in the senate. He was some years 
after prosecuted for the plunder of the gold of Tolosa, and 
he ended his days in exile. Cassius' colleague, Cn. Domidus 
Ahenobarbus, deprived the pontiffs of the right of choosing 
their own colleagues, and gave it to the people ; and another 

* Appian, B. C. i. 28—63. Velleius, ii. 13—17. Plut., Marius and 
Sulla. 



TRIBUNATE OF SATURNINUS. 325 

of the tribunes, C. Servilius Glaucia, offered the freedom of 
the city to any of the Latins or the allies who should prose- 
cute a magistrate to conviction. 

These, however, were but preludes to what was to follow. 
Marius was raised a sixth time to the consulate, (652,) and 
it is said that he employed both money and arts to prevent 
Metellus from being his colleague, and to have L. Valerius 
Flaccus, on whom he could rely, appointed. His allies were 
Glaucia and Saturninus, both mortal enemies to Metellus, 
who, but for his colleague, would, in his censorship, have 
degraded them for their scandalous lives. Glaucia as prsetor 
presided when Saturninus stood a second time for the tribu- 
nate. He was notwithstanding rejected, and A. Nonius, a 
bitter enemy to them both, elected; but when he left the 
assembly, they sent a body of their satellites after him, who 
murdered him ; and next morning Glaucia, without waiting 
for the people, had Saturninus appointed by his own crew 
to take his place, no one venturing even to murmur. 

A series of measures of a demagogic nature were now 
introduced. By one law the land which had been recovered 
from the Cimbrians beyond the Po was to be treated as 
conquered land, without any regard to the rights of its Gallic 
owners, and divided among Roman citizens and soldiers ; 
100 jugers apiece Avere to be given to the veterans in 
Africa ; * colonies were to be led to Sicily, Achaia, and 
Macedonia ; t the Tolosan gold was to be employed in the 
purchase of lands to be divided. By another law, corn was 
to be sold to the people at a reduced rate. | It was added 
to the law for dividing the Gallic land, that in case of its 
passing, the senate must, within five days, swear to it, and 
that any one who refused should be expelled the senate, and 
fined 500,000 sesterces. 

The laws relating to the division of the lands were not at 
all pleasing to the town population, who saw that the ad- 
vantages would fall mostly to the Italians. The movers, 
therefore, took care to bring in from the country large num- 
bers of those who had served under Marius, to overawe and 
outvote the people of the city. These last cried out that it 
thundered ; Saturninus took no heed, but urged on his law : 

* Aur. Victor. t Cic. Balbus, 21. 

t At the semis et triens. (See p. 301.) Auctor ad Herenn. i. 12. 
Caepio, who was now quaestor, we are here told, when he could not 
prevent the law from being put to the vote in any other way, broke 
the hustings-b,ridges, (pontes,) and took away the voting-urns. 

28 



326 HISTORY OF ROME. 

they then girt their clothes about them, seized whatever 
came to hand, and fell on the country folk, who, incited by 
Saturninus, attacked them in turn, drove them off, and then 
passed the law. Marius, as consul, laid the matter before 
the senate, declaring that he for one would never take the 
oath. Metellus, for whom the snare was laid, made a similar 
declaration ; the rest expressed their approbation, and Marius 
closed the senate. On the fifth day he assembled them again 
in haste, telling them that the people were very hot on the 
matter, and that he saw no remedy but for them to swear to 
it as far as it was law, and that when the country people 
were gone home they might easily show that it was not law, 
as it had been carried by force, and when there was thunder. 
He himself and his friends then swore ; the rest, though they 
now saw through the trick, were afraid not to do the same. 
Metellus alone refused. Next day Saturninus sent and had 
him dragged out of the senate-house ; when the other tribunes 
defended him, Glaucia and Saturninus ran to the country 
people, telling them they had no chance of land if Metellus 
remained in Rome. Saturninus then proposed that the 
consuls should be directed to interdict him from fire, water, 
and lodging. The town people armed themselves, and were 
resolved to defend him ; but Metellus, thanking them for 
their zeal, said he would not have his country endangered 
on his account, and he went into voluntary exile at Rhodes. 
Saturninus then had his bill against him passed, and Marius 
made the proclamation with no little pleasure. 

When the elections came on, Saturninus had himself re- 
chosen, and with him one L. Equitius Firmo, whom he gave 
out to be a son of Tib. Gracchus, which gained him the 
popular favor. But his great object was to get Glaucia into 
the consulate, which was a matter of some difficulty, for M. 
Antonius, the celebrated orator, had been already chosen for 
one of the places, and C. Memmius, a man of high charac- 
ter and extremely popular,* stood for the other. They did 
not, however, let this difficulty long stand in their v/ay. 
They sent some of their satellites, armed with sticks, who 
in the open day, in the midst of the election, and before all 
the people, fell on Memmius and beat him to death ! The 
assembly was dissolved, and Saturninus, next morning, hav* 
ing summoned his adherents from the country, occupied the 
Capitol, with Glaucia, the qusestor C. Saufeius, and some 

* See above, pp. 311, 312. 



RETURN OF METELLUS. 327 

others. The senate, having met, declared them public ene- 
mies, and directed the consuls to provide for the safety of 
the state. Marius had then reluctantly to take arms against 
his friends. While he loitered, some of the more determined 
cut the pipes which supplied the Capitol with water. When 
the thirst became intolerable, Saufeius proposed to burn the 
temple ; but the others, relying on Marius, agreed to surren- 
der on the public faith. There was a general cry to put them 
to death ; but Marius, in order to save them, shut them up 
in the Curia Hostilia, under pretext of acting more legally. 
The people, however, would not be balked of their ven- 
geance ; they stripped off the roof, and flung the tiles down 
on them and killed them. A number of their adherents also 
were slain, among them the pseudo-Gracchus. 

A decree for the recall of Metellus was joyfully passed by 
the senate and people, (653:) Marius, having vainly tried to 
prevent it, left the city, to avoid witnessing the return of 
his enemy. He went to Asia Minor, under pretence of 
offering some sacrifices he had vowed to the Mother of the 
Gods, (Cybele,) but in reality to try if he could excite the 
king of Pontus to a war, for peace he felt not to be his ele- 
ment, and his conduct since his triumph had lost him the 
favor of all parties. The tribune P. Furius, whom Metel- 
lus had degraded when censor, (650,) also opposed his recall, 
and stood firm against the tears and entreaties of his son. 
His filial piety gained for the youth the surname of Pius, 
{dutiful,) and Furius being prosecuted the next year by his 
late colleague, C. Canuleius, was torn to pieces by the people, 
who would not even listen to his defence. When Metellus 
arrived at Rome the concourse of those who came to con- 
gratulate him was so great that an entire day did not suffice 
for him to receive them. 

Matters now remained rather tranquil for a few years. In 
661 the tribune M. Livius Drusus, the son of the opponent 
of C. Gracchus, a young man of many estimable qualities 
but of great pride, brought forward a series of measures by 
which he proposed to remedy the evils of the state, and re- 
store the authority of the senate. In the first place the 
knights had not exercised the exclusive right of acting as 
judges, given to them by the Sempronian law, one whit more 
impartially than the senators had done. Of this the late 
condemnation of P. Rutilius had been a glaring instance. 
Rutilius, one of the most upright and honorable men of his 
time, had been both qugestor and legate in Asia, and he had 



328 HISTORY OF ROME. 

exerted himself in defending the provincials against the 
abominable oppressions and extortions of the publicans. 
This drew on nim the hatred of the whole equestrian or- 
der, a charge of extortion was got up against him ; the 
judges joyfully found him guilty; and he had to go into 
exile. Drusus now brought in a bill, by which, as tlfe sena- 
tors amounted to three hundred, an equal number should be 
selected from the equestrian order, and the decuries of judges 
be taken out of these six hundred, and he added that they 
should take cognizance of cases of bribery and corruption. 
This just and well-meant measure gave satisfaction to no 
party. The senate saw in it a loss of dignity, and they 
dreaded the influence their new associates might acquire. 
The knights in general viewed it only as a plan for gradually 
withdrawing from them the judicial power which they had 
found so profitable, and they were prepared to be envious 
and jealous of the three hundred of their own body who 
might be selected. Above all, they were offended at the 
bribery clause, as they had thought themselves quite secure 
of impunity on that head. 

To gain the common people at Rome, Drusus proposed 
that the colonies in Italy and Sicily, which had been long 
since voted, should be formed, and that the Sempronian law 
for the distribution of corn should be retained. He further, 
whether it was what he had originally in view, or annoyed at 
finding his good intentions so ill received,* resolved to give 
the freedom of the state to all the Italians. He carried on 
his measures not without violence ; and one evening when 
he returned home from the Forum, followed as usual by a 
great crowd, and was in his hall dismissing them, he cried 
out that he was wounded. A shoemaker's knife was found 
stuck in his thigh, but the assassin was not discovered. 
" Ah ! my friends and relations," said he, as he lay dying, 
" will the republic ever have a citizen such as IV'* No ju- 
dicial inquiry was instituted into this murder, and all the 
laws of Drusus were abrogated by a single senatusconsult, 
on the motion of the consul L. Marcius Philippus, as having 
been contrary to the auspices. 

The knights resolved to push their success to the utter- 
most, and to deprive the allies of all hopes of the civic 
franchise. They therefore made the tribune Q,. Varius, a 
Spaniard by birth, bring in a bill to punish all those who 

* Veil. Pat. ii. 14. 



SOCIAL OR MARSIC WAR. 329 

had openly or secretly aided the Italians in their designs 
against the state; for, as many of the leading senators had 
favored their claims, they intended in this way to drive 
them from the city. The other tribunes interposed; but the 
knights stood around them brandishing their naked daggers, 
and the bill was passed; and prosecutions were instantly 
commenced against the leading senators. Many were con- 
demned : others, such as Bestia and Cotta, went into volun- 
tary exile. M. ^milius Scaurus, the chief of the senate, 
being accused by Varius before the people, made the follow- 
ing defence : " Varius of Sucro says that ^Emilius Scaurus 
has excited the allies to take up arms. M. Scaurus, the 
chief of the senate, denies it. There is no witness. Which, 
Quirites, should you believe?" The tribune did not attempt 
to go on with the prosecution.* 

The allies meantime, seeing that they had nothing now to 
expect from the justice of Rome, had resolved on an appeal 
to arms, and began secretly to make the requisite combina- 
tions among themselves. The Romans, aware of what they 
were meditating, sent spies to the different towns ; and one 
of these, seeing a youth led as a hostage from the town of 
Asculum to another town, gave information to the proconsul 
Gi. Servilius, who hastened thither and sharply rebuked the 
Asculans for what they were doing ; but they fell on and 
slew him and his legate Fonteius, and then massacred all the 
Romans in the place and pillaged their houses. Before, 
however, the confederates commenced the war, they sent to 
Rome requiring to be admitted to a participation in the hon- 
ors and advantages of that state, to whose greatness they 
had so mainly contributed. The senate replied that if they 
repented of what they had done they might send a deputa- 
tion, otherwise not. The confederates then resolved to try 
the chance of arms : their army, formed from the contin- 
gents of their several states, amounted to one hundred thou- 
sand men, exclusive of the domestic forces of each state. 

All the peoples of the Sabellian race, except the Sabines 
and Hernicans, who had long since become Roman citizens, 
shared in the war which now broke out ; in which Rome 
had to struggle for her existence with enemies whose troops 
equalled her own in number, discipline, and valor, and who 
had generals as skilful as those she could oppose to them. 
The allies chose Corfinium, the chief town of the Peligni- 

* Asconius on Cicero pro Scauro. Quintil. v. 12. Curious enough, 
Varius himself was condemned on his own law. (Asconius as above.) 
28 * p p 



330 HISTORY OF ROME. 

ans, for their capital, under the name of Italia ; they ap- 
pointed a senate of five hundred members, two consuls, and 
twelve preetorg. The first consuls were Q,. Pompsedius Silo, 
a Marsian, and C. Papius Mutilus, a Samnite ; the former 
with six praetors had the command of the north and west; 
the latter with six praetors also commanded in the south and 
east. Among the praetors were the following, T. Lafrenius, 
C. Pontidius, Marius Egnatius, M. Lamponius, C. Judaci- 
lius, Vettius Scato, Pontius Telesinus, L. Cluentius, and P. 
Ventidius. The war is named the Social, Marsic, or Italian 
war, from the names of those engaged in it. 

The Roman senate made diligent preparations to meet the 
coming danger ; the Latins, Tuscans, Umbrians and the 
people of some other parts of Italy remained faithful, and 
troops came from Gaul and from the foreign allies. The 
chief command of the farces, which equalled those of the 
Italians in number, was given to the consuls L. Julius Caesar 
and P. Rutilius Lupus ; the former had as legates his brother 
P. Lentulus, L. Sulla, T. Didius, M. Marcellus and M. Li- 
cinius Crassus ; the legates of the other consul were C. 
Marius, Cn. Pompeius Strabo, Q,. Servilius Caepio, C, Per- 
perna and Valerius Messala. 

The advantages were at first all on the side of the Italians. 
Vettius Scato defeated the consul Julius, and took the town 
of ^sernia in Samnium. Marius Egnatius took Venafrum 
by treachery, and destroyed two Roman cohorts that were 
in it. P. Presentaeus defeated a force of 10,000 men under 
the legate Perperna, and killed 4000 of them ; for which 
Rutilius deprived Perperna of his command, and gave what 
remained of his troops to C. Marius. Lamponius defeated 
Crassus with a loss of eight hundred men, and forced him 
to shut himself up in Grumentum. Papius entered Cam-i 
pania and took Nola, Stabiae, Minturnse, and Salurnum; the 
troops in all these places entered his service, and when he 
laid waste the country round Nuceria the neighboring towns 
all declared for him and augmented his forces with 10,000 
foot and 1000 horse. He then laid siege to Acerrae, to 
whose relief the consul Julius came with 10,000 Gallic foot 
and a body of Moorish and Numidian troops ; but Papius, 
sending to Venusia for a son of Jugurtha's who was a pris- 
oner there, clad him in purple, and showed him to the Nu- 
midians, a great number of whom deserted ; and Caesar 
became so dubious of the rest that he sent them away home. 
When, however, Papius made an attempt on his camp, he 
was repelled with the loss of 6000 men. 



SOCIAL OR MARSIC WAR. 331 

Rutilius and Marius advanced to the Liris, over which 
they threw two bridges within a short distance of each other. 
Vettius Scato, who was encamped opposite that of Marius, 
went and lay in ambush during the night at that of Rutilius; 
and when the Romans crossed in the morning he drove them 
back with great loss, Rutilius receiving a wound in the head, 
of which he afterwards died. But meantime Marius had 
crossed over and taken Vettius' camp, which obliged him to 
retreat! When the bodies of the consul and other men of 
rank were brought to Rome for interment, the sight was so 
dispiriting that the senate made a decree that in future all 
who fell should be buried on the spot ; the Italians when they 
heard of it made a similar decree. 

Marius and Cgepio were directed to take the command of 
Rutilius' army, as no consul could now be elected in his 
place, Pompeedius then pretended to desert to Csepio, and 
urging him to advance and fall on his troops, now without a 
leader, led him into an ambush, where he and most of his 
men were slain. At the same time, as Caesar was leading 
his army, said to be 30,000 foot and 5000 horse, through a 
defile, he was fallen on and routed by Egnatius. He escaped 
with difficulty to Teanum, where having reassembled his 
troops he went and encamped over against Papias, who was 
still befote Acerrae. 

The Marsians having attacked Marius were driven back 
into some vineyards, whither he did not venture to pursue 
them ; but Sulla, who was encamped behind the vineyards, 
when he heard the noise fell on the fugitives, and the entire 
loss of the Marsians was six thousand men. This, however, 
only exasperated that gallant people, and they soon took the 
field again. On the side of Falernum, Judacilius, Lafrenius, 
and Ventidius, having united their forces, drove Pompeius 
into Firmum, where, leaving Lafrenius to watch him, the 
others went away. But P. Sulpicius came to his relief, and 
while the besieged made a sally he fell on the camp of the 
besiegers and set it on fire. The Italians were defeated and 
their general slain. 

In this war the conduct of Marius was little worthy of his 
former fame ; whether in consequence of his age, (he was 
now sixty-five,) or of a nervous disorder as he himself said, 
he acted with timidity and irresolution, shutting himself up 
in an entrenched camp, and allowing the enemy to insult 
him, and finally resigning his command. 

The first year of the war was now drawing to a close ; the 



332 HISTORY OF ROME. 

senate had been obliged to allow the freedmen to be enlisted 
for the legions, and the Tuscans and Umbrians showed 
strong symptoms of an inclination to share in the revolt. 
The opponents to the claims of the allies were forced to 
yield, and the consul Julius had a law passed granting the 
civic franchise to the Latins and those who had not revolted, 
and finally to those who should lay down their arms. This 
prudent measure at once quieted the Tuscans. 

The consuls of the next year (663) were Cn. Po^npeius 
and M, Porcius Cato. The former defeated a body of 15,000 
Italians who were on their march for Etruria ; the slain were 
5000 in number ; and it being winter, more than half of 
those who escaped perished by hunger and the severity of 
the weather. His colleague was less fortunate, for about the 
same time, having gained some advantages over the Marsians, 
he made an attack on their camp, but was defeated and 
slain. Pompeius laid siege to Asculum; the praetor Cos- 
conius was defeated by the Samnites, but being joined by 
the praetor Lucceius he again engaged, and routed them 
with a loss of 15,000 men and their general Marius Eg- 
natius. 

Sulla defeated the Italian general Cluentius at Pompeii 
in Campania. He then entered Samnium, and took the 
town of JEculanum. He defeated Papius near JEsernia, and 
then took Bovianum. 

Pompeius meantime urged on the siege of Asculum. Ju- 
dacilius, who was a native of that town, advanced with 
eight cohorts to its relief, sending word to the people to 
make a sally when they saw him. This however they did 
not do ; he forced his way in, nevertheless, and seeing there 
was no chance of his being able to maintain the town, he 
resolved not to let those escape who had turned the people 
against him. He seized and put them to death, and then 
raised a pyre in a temple on which he placed a couch, and 
having feasted with his friends and swallowed poison, he lay 
down, directing them to set fire to it, and he thus perished. 

Fortune was now every where adverse to the allies ; one by 
one they had lost their best generals ; the spirit of resistance 
gradually died away ; and they all, but the Samnites and 
Lucanians, submitted and received the Roman franchise ; 
and thus, after two years, ended the Social war, which had 
cost Italy the loss of three hundred thousand of the flower 
of her population, in the concessions that might have ob- 
viated it. To prevent the allies from acquiring a prepon- 



MURDER OF THE PR^TOR BY THE USURERS. 333 

derance by their numbers in the Comitia, the senate, instead 
of distributing them in the actual tribes, formed, as was the 
ancient practice, eight new tribes to contain them ; a meas- 
ure which, though not noticed at the time, gave rise to 
future dissensions. 

Durinor the Social war an event occurred at Rome which 
strongly shows the disregard for law, both human and di- 
vine, which then prevailed. The money-lenders were press- 
ing hard on their debtors, and, contrary to law, insisting upon 
interest on interest. The praetor A. Sempronius Asellio, in 
the trials which took place, reminded the jurors of the law 
on the subject; and this so incensed the usurers, that they 
resolved to fall on him as he was sacrificing to Castor and 
Pollux in the Forum. A stone was thrown which struck the 
cup out of his hand ; he fled for refuge to the temple of 
Vesta, which was hard by, but the usurers got between him 
and it ; he then ran into a tavern, whither they pursued and 
killed him. Some even went into the temple, which it was 
not lawful to enter, thinking he had fled to the Vestals, 
and resolved that even so he should not escape. The senate 
offered a reward in money to any freeman, liberty to any 
slave, and a pardon to any accomplice, who would give in- 
formation against the murderers ; but the usurers had dis- 
guised themselves so that they could not be identified, or 
perhaps people were too much in terror of them to give in- 
formation. ; 

The merits of Sulla in the Social war had been so great 
that he was raised immediately to the consulate (664) with 
Q,. Pompeius Rufus, and the conduct of the war against 
Mithridates king of Pontus was committed to him. But the 
envy and the cupidity of Marius were excited, and he re- 
solved if possible to deprive him of his command. He 
leagued himself for this purpose with P. Sulpicius Rufus, a 
tribune of the people, a man of talent and a daring character, 
and they projected a law for transferring the command to 
Marius. For this purpose it was necessary to get a majority 
in the tribes ; and as this could not be effected as they were 
then constituted, Sulpicius brought in a bill for distrib- 
uting the new citizens among all the tribes; for as they 
were highly discontented with their present position, he 
reckoned that they would give their votes to those who 
would relieve them from it. But the old citizens were not 
so willing to part with their monopoly ; they employed 



334 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Sticks and stones against the intruders. The consuls, as the 
day of voting drew near, being apprehensive of further dis- 
turbance, proclaimed a Justitium. Sulpicius directed his 
adherents to come to the Forum that day with concealed 
daggers, and to do as he should direct them. When there- 
fore all was ready, he called on the consuls to dissolve the 
justitium as being illegal. A tumult ensued, the daggers 
were drawn and brandished, and the consuls menaced. 
Pompeius fled ; Sulla retired to consult the senate ; and 
while he was away the Sulpician party fell on and murdered 
Pompeius' son, for freely speaking his mind. Sulla then 
dissolved the justitium, and set out for his army, which was 
at Nola: Sulpicius had his bill passed forthwith, and the 
Mithridatic war decreed to Marius. 

Sulla having assembled his troops told them all that had 
occurred at Rome, and as their hopes of plunder in the 
East were high, and they feared that Marius would have 
other troops and other officers, they called on him to lead 
them at once to Rome. He gladly obeyed, and set forth at 
the head of six legions. The soldiers stoned the tribunes 
whom Marius sent to take the command ; the senate, com- 
pelled by Marius, sent two praetors to prohibit the advance 
of Sulla, but they narrowly escaped with their lives from 
the soldiery. Other embassies followed, praying Sulla not 
to come nearer than where he was, at the fifth milestone, 
Marius wishing to get time to prepare for defence. Sulla 
seeing through the design gave the promise; but he fol- 
lowed close on the heels of the envoys, and he himself 
with one legion seized the Caelian gate, while Pompeius 
with another seized the Colline ; a third went to the bridge, 
a fourth staid without, and Sulla led the remaining two 
into the city. The people began to throw missiles and tiles 
on them from the roofs ; but when Sulla threatened to set 
fire to the houses, they desisted. Marius and his party gave 
them battle at the Esquiline, but they were defeated, and 
Marius* and Sulpicius having vainly essayed to excite the 
slaves fled out of the city. 

Sulla next day assembled the people, and having deplored 
the condition into which the constitution had been brought 
by the arts and the violence of wicked men, proposed, as 
the only remedy, a return to the former wholesome state 
of things ; that no measure should be brought before the 
people that had not been examined and approved of by the 



FLIGHT OF MARIUS. 335 

senate ; and that the voting should be by the classes, as ar- 
ranged by king Servius, and not by the tribes. He then, as 
the senate was so much reduced, selected three hundred 
of the most respectable men to augment it. All the late 
measures of Sulpicius were declared illegal, and he, Marius 
and his son, and about twelve other senators, were outlawed, 
and their property confiscated. 

Sulpicius was betrayed by a slave and put to death. 
Marius escaped in the night to Ostia, where one of his 
friends had provided a vessel for him ; he embarked, but a 
storm coming on he was obliged to land near Circseum, 
where, as he and his companions were rambling about, some 
herdsmen who knew him telling him that a party of horse 
had just been seen in quest of him, they got into a wood, 
where they passed the night without food. Next morning, 
they set out for MinturnsB, but on turning round they 
saw a troop of horsemen in pursuit of them. There hap- 
pened to be two vessels just then lying close in to the shore, 
and they ran and got aboard of them. The horsemen 
came to the water's edge, and called out to the crews to 
put Marius out, but they were moved by his entreaties, 
and, refusing to deliver him up, sailed away ; but afterwards, 
reflecting on the danger they were running, they persuaded 
him to land at the mouth of the Liris to get some food and 
repose, and, while he was lying in the grass, they went on 
board, and, making sail, left him to his fate. He rambled 
about the marshes till he reached the solitary hut of an old 
man, whose compassion he impiored. The old man led 
him av/ay into the marsh, and making him lie down in a 
hollow spot near the river covered him with sedge and 
rushes. Presently Marius heard at the hut the voices of 
those who were in pursuit of him, and fearing lest his host 
might betray him he got up, and went and stood up to his 
neck in the mud and water of the marsh. Here, however, 
he was soon discovered, and was dragged out, naked as he 
was, and led to Minturnse and placed in confinement. The 
authorities there having consulted together resolved to put 
him to death, and a Gallic horseman was sent to despatch 
him. The Gaul, when he approached the spot where he 
was lying in a dark room, was daunted by the fiery glare of 
the old warrior's eyes, and when he rose and cried with a 
tremendous voice, " Dost thou dare to slay Caius Marius ? " 
he rushed out, crying, " I cannot kill Caius Marius." The 



336 HISTORY OF ROME. 

magistrates then determined not to have the blood of so 
great a man on their heads, and they gave him his liberty, 
and leading him to the coast put him on board of a vessel 
to pass over to Africa. He landed at Carthage ; but pres- 
ently came a messenger from C. Sextilius, the governor of 
the province, ordering him to depart. He long sat in si- 
lence, looking sternly at the envoy, on whose inquiry of 
what reply he should make to the praetor, he groaned, and 
said, "Tell him you saw Caius Marius sitting an exile 
among the ruins of Carthage." He then retired to the 
little isle of Cercina, where he was joined by his son and 
several of his other friends, and they remained there watch- 
ing the course of events. 

Siilla sent back his army to Capua, in order to pass over 
to Greece; his colleague Q,. Pompeius was to remain to 
protect Italy with the troops of Cn. Pompeius ; but this 
army, probably with the approbation of their general, fell 
on and murdered the consul when he came to the camp, 
and Sulla was obliged to leave the command with Cn. Pom- 
peius. He moreover found that the people were adverse 
to him, for they rejected his nephew Nonius and his friend 
Servius with contempt when he recommended them- for 
office. He affected to be pleased at seeing the people ex- 
ercising the liberty, for which he said they were indebted to 
him; and he acquiesced in the appointment of L. Cornelius 
Cinna, of the opposite faction, to the consulate with Cn. 
Octavius, who was of his own party. He tried to bind 
Cinha, by the solemnity of an oath, to attempt no innova- 
tion in his absence. They ascended the Capitol, and Cinna, 
in the ancient mode, grasping a stone prayed that if he did 
not keep his engagement he might be cast out of the city 
as he flung away that stone. Sulla then departed for his 
army. 



STATE OF ASIA. 337 



CHAPTER IV.* 

STATE OP ASIA. FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR. SULLA IN 

GREECE. VICTORIES OF CH^RONEA AND ORCHOMENUS. 

PEACE WITH MITHRIDATES. FLACCUS AND FIMBRIA. 

SEDITION OF CINNA. RETURN OF MARIUS. CRUELTIES 

OF MARIUS AND CINNA. DEATH AND CHARACTER OF MA- 
RIUS. RETURN OF SULLA. HIS VICTORIES. PROSCRIP- 
TIONS OF SULLA. HIS DICTATORSHIP AND LAWS. HE 

LAYS DOWN HIS OFFICE AND RETIRES. HIS DEATH AND 

FUNERAL, HIS CHARACTER. 

The acquisition of the kingdom of Attains caused the 
Romans to become deeply interested in the affairs of the 
East. We will therefore now take a slight view of the polit- 
ical condition of Anterior Asia at this time. 

After the reign of Antiochus the Great the kingdom of 
Syria had gone rapidly to decay. The dominions east of the 
Euphrates were gradually occupied by the Parthians, a 
people probably of Turkish race, and their empire finally ex- 
tended over the whole of Persia ; their princes were named 
Arsacides, from Arsaces, tlie first of their line. Another 
portion of the Syrian dominions was about this time seized 
on by Tigranes king of Armenia, who became one of the 
most powerful monarchs of Asia. The kings of Bithynia 
and Cappadocia were dependent on the Romans; but the 
kingdom of Pontus^ on the Euxine, under its present monarch 
Mithridates VL, a prince of great activity and talent, had 
risen to considerable importance. It was against this mon- 
arch that Sulla was now to direct the arms of Rome, with 
whom the war had originated as follows. 

Ptiithridates, having, it is said, caused the king of Cappa- 
docia, who was married to his sister, to be murdered, claimed 
the guardianship of his infant nephew. His sister appealed 
for protection to Nicomedes of Bithynia; but Mithridates 
entered Cappadocia, m.urdered his nephew, and seized the 
kingdom. The Cappadocians rebelled . against him, and 
called on the Romans. The senate declared them free, and 
directed them to form a republic: but knowing none but the 

* Appian, Mithridatica, 1— €3. Bell. Civ. i. 55—107, Velleius, ii. 
20—28, Plut., Marius and Sulla. 

29 QQ 



338 HISTORY OF ROME. 

regal form of government, they sent to entreat that they 
might have a king. Their wish was acceded to, and their 
choice fell on one Ariobarzanes. Mithridates made no op- 
position ; but he secretly stirred up the Armenians, who 
drove the new monarch from his throne ; and Sulla, who had 
just been praetor, was sent from Rome (660) to restore him. 
On this occasion Sulla advanced to the Euphrates, where 
Parthian ambassadors came to him proposing an alliance 
with Rome. 

On the death of Nicomedes (661) the throne of Bithynia 
was disputed by his sons Nicomedes and Socrates named 
Chrestos ; the Pontic king, in alliance with his powerful son- 
inJaw Tigranes of Armenia, supported the latter, and at the 
same time drove Ariobarzanes out of Cappadocia. The 
Romans sent (662) an embassy, headed by M. Aquilius, to 
restore the two kings, which was done without any attempt 
on the part of Mithridates to prevent it. Aquilius and his 
friends and followers, who had, acording to the usual custom, 
made the kings and all the towns pay large sums of money or 
enormous interest for what they lent them, looking forward to 
the advantages to be derived from a war, required the kings 
to make an irruption into the dominions of Mithridates. 
Nicomedes unwillingly complied, on their assurance that 
they would aid him. Mithridates, desirous to put the 
Romans in the wrong, offered no resistance, but sent an em- 
bassy to complain ; and on receiving an ambiguous, unsatisfac- 
tory reply, he entered and seized Cappadocia. lie then sent 
again to the Romans, displaying his power and advising them 
to justice and peace ; but they in indignation ordered his 
envoy to quit their camp and never to return. 

The Roman commissioners, with L. Cassius, the governor 
of the province of Asia, now took upon them, without con- 
sulting the senate and people, and in the very midst of the 
Social war, to make war on a most powerful monarch. They 
collected a force of 120,000 men, and dividing them into three 
corps, Cassius, Aquilius, and Q-. Oppius took different posi- 
tions, while Nicomedes was at the head of an army of his 
subjects. But the Pontic generals Archelaus and Neop- 
tolemus, two Capp.adocians by birth, defeated Nicomedes ; 
the Roman commanders successively had the same fate, and 
Mithridates was speedily master of the v/hole of Asia north 
of Mount Taurus ; the isles of the ^gean also cheerfully sub- 
mitted to his dominion, Rhodes alone remaining faithful to 
the Romans. 



SULLA IN GREECE. 339 

Mithridates now gave a dreadful proof of his hatred to the 
Romans. He sent secret orders to the people of the Greek 
towns on the coast to rise on a certain day and massacre all 
the Romans and Italians, men, women and children, slaves 
and free, without mercy ; and such was the hatred the 
Romans had brought on themselves by their insolence, 
oppression and extortion, that the mandate was strictly 
obeyed, — less, says the historian, from fear of the king than 
from animosity toward them. No mercy was shown, no 
temple was a sanctuary ; those who grasped the images of the 
gods were torn from them; the children were slain before 
the face of their mothers, whose own fate was only so long 
deferred. The lowest calculation gives eighty thousand as 
the number of those who perished. Such as escaped sought 
refuge in Rhodes, which Mithridates besieged by sea and 
land ; but to no effect, as he was obliged to retire with 
disgrace. Meantime in Greece the Athenians, Boeotians, 
Achseans, and Laconians had declared for him, and Arche- 
laus passed over and made the Pira3eus his head-quarters, 
while an Epicurean philosopher named Aristion became the 
tyrant of the city by means of a garrison of two thousand 
men that Archelaus had given him to guard the treasure 
which was transferred thither from Delos. Near Chaeronea, 
Brutius Sura, the legate of Q. Sentius governor of Macedo- 
nia, engaged the Pontic troops for three days, and forced 
them to fall back to Athens. 

Sulla was now (665) landed with five legions and some 
troops of the allies. The Boeotians returned to their alle- 
giance to Rome; he advanced into Attica, and laid siege to 
Athens and the Pirseeus, being desirous to end the war as 
speedily as possible and return to Rome. He first tried to 
storm the Pirseeus, but, failing in the attempt, he made all 
kinds of machines, cutting down for that purpose the trees of 
the Academy and the Lyceum, and taking the sacred treas- 
ures from Epidaurus, Delphi, and Olympia. All the assaults 
on the Pireeeus were gallantly repelled by Archelaus, and as 
the Pontic fleet commanded the sea no want was felt; but in 
the city famine soon began to rage, while the misery of the 
wretched citizens was augmented by the insolence and cru- 
elty of Aristion. At length the chatter of some old men, 
blaming him for not having secured a certain part of the wall, 
was overheard by the Romans, and Sulla attacked the town 
on that side and forced his way in. He gave orders for an 
indiscriminate slaughter ; no age or sex was spared ; the very 



340 HISTORY OF ROME. 

streets ran blood, till night ended the carnage ; he then 
granted to the prayers of his friends, and the former renown 
of the city, the lives of those who remained. Aristion fled to 
the Acropolis, but thirst soon compelled him to surrender, 
and he was put to death. Sulla then pressed the siege of the 
Pirceeus more vigorously than ever, and Archelaus having at 
length embarked his troops and left it to its fate, he took and 
burned it, without sparing its noble docks and arsenal, (666.) 
. Archelaus meantime, in conjunction with the other gen- 
erals, had assembled an army stated at 120,000 men, with 
which he encamped near Chseronea. Sulla led his troops 
into Boeotia. Archelaus, knowing the inferiority of his 
soldiers, wished to avoid an action, but the impetuosity of 
some of the other generals was not to be restrained ; they 
gave battle to disadvantage, and sustained so entire a defeat 
that only 10,000 men, it is said, of the Vvdiole array escaped, 
while we are assured that the Romans lost but thirteen men I 
Archelaus fled to Euboea, and soon after Mithridates, having 
sent another army of 80,000 men under Dorylaus into Greece, 
he joined it, and, taking the command, encamped at Orcho- 
menus. Sulla, seeing the fine plain which extends thence to 
Lake Copais so well adapted for the action of the enemies' 
numerous cavalry, dug trenches through it ten feet wide to 
impede them. Archelaus, observing what he was about, made 
a charge ; the Romans vi^ere giving way, when Sulla, jumping 
from his horse, seized a standard, and advancing alone with it 
cried out, " If any ask you, Romans, where you left your 
general, say. Fighting at Orchomenus." Shame took place 
of fear, the troops turned, Sulla sprang again to horse, the 
enemies were driven to their camp with a loss of 15,000 men, 
and next day the camp was stormed, and those who were in 
it slaughtered or driven into the marshes, where they were 
drowned. Archelaus fled to Chalcis, and Sulla retired to 
Thessaly for the winter. 

■ Meantime matters at Rome had taken a turn highly un- 
favorable to Sulla, and his friends came flying for safety to 
his camp. He was therefore anxious to terminate the war, 
and gladly hearkened to the proposal of an interview with 
Archelaus for that purpose. The Pontic general, who knew 
his situation, proposed that he should give up all designs on 
Asia and return to the civil war in Italy, for which Mithri- 
dates would supply him with money, ships, and troops. This 
being indignantly rejected, it was agreed that the king should 
restore all his conquests in Asia, pay two thousand talents, 



FLACCUS AND FIMBRIA. 341 

and furnish seventy ships fully equipped, and then be secured 
in his other dominions and declared an ally of Rome. Sulla 
then, accompanied by Archelaus, set out for the Hellespont : 
but envoys came from Mithridates refusing to, give up Paph- 
lao-onia. This roused the indio-nation of Sulla. Archelau? 
craved permission to go to his master ; and an interview 
between Sulla and Mithridates having taken place at Darda- 
nuni, all was arranged as Sulla desired. He excused himselt 
to his soldiers for not exacting more satisfaction for the blood 
of so many myriads of Roman citizens, by telling them that 
if the king and Fimbria were to unite their troops he should 
be unable to withstand them. 

C= Flavins Fimbria was at this time in Asia, at the head 
of a Roman army of the Marian faction, Cinna, as we shall 
presently relate, having made L. Valerius Flaccus his col- 
league in the consulate, sent hira with two leo-ions to take the 
conduct of the Mithridatic war from Sulla, and, as he was 
not a military man, Fimbria, who was a good officer, was 
sent out as his legate. Fearing, as it would seem, to meet 
Sulla, Flaccus led his troops through Macedonia to the Hel- 
lespont, and here a quarrel taking place between him and 
Fimbria, the latter, having excited a sedition against him 
among the soldiers, whom his avarice had alienated, murdered 
him and took the command of the army, with which he 
gained some advantages over Mithridates and his son. He 
was encamped at Thyatira at the time of the peace, and Sulla 
instantly marched against him. Fimbria's trpops began at 
once to desert, and finding he could not rely on them, and 
being mortified by Sulla's refusal of a personal interview, he 
put an end to himself. His army then joined that of Sulla, 
who having regulated the affairs of Asia, rewarding those 
who had been faithful to Rome, and imposing such heavy 
fines on the rest of the towns as immersed them in debt to the 
usurers and became a source of incalculable misery, set out 
for Greece on his return to Italy, where a new war awaited 
him. 

For scarcely had he left Rome when Cinna, heedless of 
his oath, and having, it is said, received a large bribe for the 
purpose, renevv^ed Sulpicius' project of dividing the new 
citizens among all the tribes.^ Octavius, with the senate and 
the old citizens, opposed him. A large number of the new 
citizens armed with daggers occupied the Forum, to carry 
the law by terror ; but Octavius, at the head of the opposite 
party, also armed, came down and dispersed them. Several 
29* 



342 HISTORY OF ROME. 

were slain, and Cinna, having vainly essayed to excite the 
slaves, fled from the city. The senate declared his dignity to 
be forfeited, and L. Cornelius Merula, the Flamen Dialis, 
was made consul in his place. Cinna repaired to the army at 
Nola, which he induced to declare for him ; he also gained 
several of the allied towns, which furnished him with men 
and money; and C. Milonius, Q,. Sertorius, and others of his 
senatorial friends, having come from Rome and joined him, 
he resumed the consular ensigns and advanced against the 
city, which Octavius and Merula had put in a state of defence. 
They had also summoned Pompeius Strabo to their aid, and 
he was now encamped before the Colline gate. 

Cinna having recalled Marius, he embarked with his 
friends and made sail for Italy. He landed in Etruria, 
where his name and his promises respecting the places in the 
tribes drew about six thousand men to his standard ; he then 
sent to Cimia, offermg to serve under him. Cinna overjoyed 
sent him proconsular ensigns; but Marius, who still wore 
the dress in which he had fled from Rome, and had never 
cut or trimmed his hair since that time, replied that they did 
not become one in his condition. They divided their forces 
into three parts, Cinna and Cn. Carbo lying before the city, 
Serto^'ius above, Marius below it ; and Marius having taken 
Ostia, and put its inhabitants to the sword, threw a bridge 
over the river so that no provisions could reach the city. 

Octavius was advised to offer liberty to the slaves; but he 
replied that he would not give slaves a share in that coun- 
try, from which, in defence of the laws, he was excluding 
C. Marius. Orders were sent to Q.. Metellus Pius, who was 
acting against the Samnites, to make terms with them and 
come to the aid of the city. But while he hesitated to grant 
the terms they required, Marius sent, and promising them all 
they demanded, gained them over to his side. Ap. Claudius, 
a military tribune who had charge of the Janiculan, admitted 
Marius into the town, who then let in Cinna ; but the troops 
of Octavius and Pompeius drove them out again. Pom.peius 
was shortly after killed by lightning. 

Famine now began to be dreaded in the city, and both 
slaves and free deserted in great numbers. The senate 
therefore sent envoys to treat with Cinna : he asked if they 
came to him as consul or as a private person; they hesitated, 
and retired. He then encamped nearer the city, and the 
senate finding the desertion increase were obliged to deprive 
Merula of his office, and send to Cinna as consul. Thev 



CRUELTIES OF MARIUS AND CINNA. 343 

only asked him to swear that there should be no slaughter; 
he declined to swear, but promised that he would not of his 
own accord be the cause of any one's death, and he desired 
that Octavius should leave the city lest any evil should befall 
him. Cinna spoke thus from his tribunal, beside which 
stood C. Marius in silence ; Jput his stern look showed what 
he was meditating. When the senate sent to invite them to 
enter the city, Marius said, smiling ironically, that such was 
not permitted to exiles. The tribunes assembled the tribes to 
vote his recall, but not more than three or four had voted, 
when he flung off the mask, entered the city at the head of a 
body-guard of slaves named Bardigeans, who slew all he 
pointed out to them ; it at length sufficing for Marius not to 
return any one's salute for these ruffians to murder him. 
Their atrocities at length rose to such a height that. Cinna 
and Sertorius found it necessary to fall on and massacre them 
in their sleep. 

We will enter into some details of the murders now per- 
petrated. Octavius, declaring that while consul he would 
never quit the city, retired to the Janiculan. Here, while 
he sat on his tribunal surrounded by his lictors, some horse- 
men, sent for the purpose, killed him, and, cutting off his 
head, brought it to Cinna, by whom it w^as fixed on the Rostra. 
C. and L. Julius, Atilius Serranus, P. Lentulus, and M. 
Bgebius were overtaken and slain as they fled. Crassus and 
his son being pursued, the father killed the son, and then was 
slain himself. M. Antonius, the great orator, sought refuge 
in the house of a peasant, who, having sent his slave to a tav- 
ern to get somewhat better wine than usual, the host inquired 
the reason ; the slave whispered it to him, and he went off, 
and, finding Marius at supper, gave him the information. 
Marius clapped his hands with joy, and was hardly kept 
from going himself to seize him. He sent a tribune named 
Annius, who, staying without, sent some soldiers in to kill 
him ; but the eloquence v^ith which Antonius pleaded for 
his life was such that the soldiers stood as if enchanted. An- 
nius, wondering at their delay, went in and himself cut off 
Antonius' head, and brought it to Marius. Q., Ancharius, 
seeing Marius about to sacrifice on the capitol, and thinking 
he might be in a merciful ihood, approached and addressed 
him, but the signal was given and he was slain. L. Merula 
and Q. Catulus, Marius' colleague in the Cimbric war, and 
whom he had never forgiven, put themselves to a voluntary 
death. Merula opened his veins, and a tablet was found by 



344 HISTORY OF ROME. 

him saying that he had previously taken off his sacred hat, 
{apex,) in v/hich it was not lawful for a flamen to die.* 
Catulus shut himself up in a room newly plastered with lime, 
and burning charcoal in it suffocated himself. Nor must the 
fidelity of the slaves of Cornutus go without its praise, who 
concealed their master, and taking and dressing the corpse 
of some common person burned it as his, and then conveyed 
him away secretly to Gaul. All the friends of Sulla were 
murdered; his house was razed, his property confiscated, and 
himself declared an enemy. Murder, banishment, confis- 
cation raged every day, and even sepulture was refused to the 
bodies of the slain, Marius, whose appetite for blood in- 
creased with indulgence, was at the end of the year made 
consul the seventh time with Cinna, but he died in the first 
month while meditating new schemes of vengeance. t Cinna 
then had L. Valerius Flaccus, and when he heard of his 
murder, Cn. Papirius Carbo, chosen as his colleague, (667.) 
Caius Marius was one of those men who, in particular 
states of society, rise to eminence without teing really great. 
His talents were purely military; his good qualities those of 
the mere soldier ; he was temperate and free from avarice, 
but he was envious, jealous, ignorant, superstitious, and cruel, 
even to ferocity. As a statesman he was contemptible, the 
mere tool of others, and deficient in moral courage. Even 
in his military capacity he was rather a good officer than 
a great general. In Numidia he only imitated Metellus, who 
had really brought the war to a conclusion ; there is nothing 
remarkable in his conduct of the Cimbric war; and, if Sulla 
is to be believed, the battle at Vercellae did him no great 
credit. It was party spirit, not a sense of his superior merits, 
that renewed his consulates at this time ; for surely Metellus, 
if no other, could have conducted the Cimbric war as well as 
Marius. Finally, in the Social war, when opposed to able 
generals and good troops, his deficiencies became apparent. | 

* The office now remained vacant till 744. Dion, liv. 36; Tac. Ann 
iii. 58; Suet. Octav. 31. 

f Fimbria, who was at this time qusestor, at the funeral of Marius 
ordered Q,. ScEevola, the chief pontiff, to be slain. Finding that the 
wound was not mortal, he prosecuted him ; and being asked what 
charo-es he could bring against so excellent a man, he replied, that of 
not receiving the whole weapon in his body. (Cicero, Roscius 
Amer. 12.) 

t It may surprise some to find the aristocratic Cicercr constantly 
lauding Marius ; but they were natives of the same place, their families 
had been connected, and Cicero was a vain-glorious man. 



RETURN OF SULLA. 345 

Those who had escaped from the tyranny of Marius and 
Cinna sought refage with Sulla, and they were so numerous 
that his camp seemed to contain a senate. Cinna and Carbo, 
knowing their danger, exerted themselves to the utmost to 
raise troops and money through Italy to oppose him. It was 
however carried in the senate to send an embassy to treat of 
peace. Orders were forwarded to Cinna to give over levying 
troops till Sulla's answer should arrive; to which he promised 
obedience, but yielded none. He assembled his troops to 
pass over to Liburnia to oppose Sulla there, but he was short- 
ly after killed by them in a mutiny, and Carbo remained sole 
consul, (668.) 

Sulla's answer now arrived, declaring his willingness to 
obey the senate, provided all those who had sought refuge 
with him were restored to their country, and himself to. all 
his dignities and honors ; but that he never could be the 
friend of those who had perpetrated such atrocities', though 
the people might pardon them if they pleased : adding that he 
should be better able to protect himself and friends by retain- 
ing a well-affected army. His envoys however, hearing at 
Brundisium of the death of Cinna, did not proceed in the 
business. Carbo, to strengthen himself, had the freedmen 
distributed through all the tribes, and he wished to exact hos- 
tages .from all the towns and colonies in Italy, but was pre- 
vented by the senate. He had also a decree passed ordering 
all the armies to be disbanded. 

In Africa the cause of Cinna's faction was at this time tri- 
umphant, for C. Fabius, whom they had sent thither as pro- 
prcBtor, defeated and drove out of it Q,. Metelius Pius, who 
supported the cause of the aristocracy. 

At length (669) Sulla, having regulated the affairs of 
Greece and Asia, embarked in 1600 vessels, with an army of 
40,000 men, at Patrag, and landed at Brundisium.* He was 
joined by Metelius with what troops he had, and the nobility 
flocked to him in such numbers that scarcely any seemed left 
in the city. Cn. Pompeius, (the son of him who had been 
struck by lightning,) a young man of but three-and-twenty 
years, who had impeded the levies of Carbo in Picenum, and 
raised there an army of three legions on his own account, 
with which he had succesfu^ly opposed the troops of Carbo's 
generals, also came to join him. Sulla received this young 

* Appian. Velleius says 30,000- men, and Plutarch that he sailed 
from Dyrrhachium in 1200 ships. 

R R 



346 HISTORY OF ROME. 

man with distinguished favor, styled him Imperator^, and 
alwajvS rose at his approach and uncovered his head, — hon- 
ors which he showed to no one else. 

Those of the other party at Rome, well aware of Sulla's 
merciless, unrelenting character, saw that there was no me- 
dium for them between victory and ruin ; and the people in 
general, knowing that his victory would be followed by mur- 
ders and confiscations, made every effort to resist him. The 
consuls, therefore, L. Scipio and C. Junius Nordanus were 
enabled to enroll a force of 100,000 men for the war against 
him. The first battle was fouo;ht between him and Norbanus 
at Canusium, where the latter was defeated with the loss of 
six thousand men, and fled to Capua. Sulla advanced into 
Campania : at Teanum he proposed a conference with Scipio 
about regulating the state, and he took advantage of the ne- 
gotiations to gain the consul's troops, who, when Sulla pre- 
pared to attack their camp, all went over to him, leaving 
Scipio and his son alone in their tent ; they were, however, 
dismissed in safety by Sulla. He then tried the same course 
with Norbanus and his troops at Capua, but without success. 
Carbo hastened to the defence of Rome, where he caused 
Metellus and all the senators who were with Sulla to be de- 
clared public enemies. The rest of the year was spent by 
both parties in augmenting their forces, in which the consuls 
had the advantage, being largely reenforced from the greater 
part of Italy and from Cisalpine Gaul. Among the events of 
this year was the conflagration of the temple erected on the 
Capitol by the last kings of Rome. 

Carbo had himself and C. Marius, the son of the great 
Marius, chosen consuls for the next year, (670.) The cam- 
paign was opened with the defeat at the ^Esis, a stream which 
divides Umbria from Picenum, of Carbo's legate, C. Albius 
Carrinas, by Metellus ; and soon after Marius, giving battle to 
Sulla at Sacriportum near Signia, was overcome, in conse- 
quence of a part of his troops going over to the enemy. Ma- 
rius and the rest of his troops fled to Prseneste, but when a 
part had gotten in, the Praenestines closed their gates lest the 
pursuers should enter also. Marius himself was drawn up 
by a rope ; but those without, who were mostly Samnites, 
were slaughtered without mercy by Sulla ; who, having left 
Q,. Lucretius Ofella to blockade the town, led his troops 
toward Rome. Marius, being resolved that his enemies there 
should not escape, sent order^^to the proetor L. Junius Bru- 
tus Damasippus to assemble the senate as if for some other 



VICTORIES OF SULLA. 347 

purpose, and then to seize and put to death P. Antistius, 
P. Carbo, L. Domitius, and Q,. Mucins Scsevola the chief pon- 
tiff. His orders were executed ; Scaevola, it is said, was 
butchered in the vestibule of the temple of Vesta. 

Sulla, having led his army to the field of Mars, entered the 
city, from which all his enemies had fled. He sold all their 
goods by auction, and then assembling the people lamented 
the necessity he was under of acting thus, and assured 
them that all would soon be well again. Leaving Rome he 
marched against Carbo, who was at Clusium : but we need 
not enter into an enumeration of the various actions which 
now occurred in different parts ; the superiority in military 
skill was so decided on the part of Sulla and his generals 
that they had the advantage in every encounter ; many places 
submitted; the defeated armies mostly dispersed and went 
to their several homes ; Norbanus fled to Rhodes, and Carbo 
to Africa. 

The Samnites and Lucanians had taken a large share in 
the war, and now their troops, under Pontius Telesinus and 
Lamponius, united, with the remnants of Carbo's army under 
Carrinas, Marcius, and Damasippus, — having vainly at- 
tempted to relieve Preeneste, — advanced against Rome ; Te- 
lesinus crying that " there never would be wanting wolves 
to ravage Italy if the wood that harbored them was not cut 
down." Their forces amounted to forty thousand men. 
Sulla returned with all speed to Rome, and late in the day 
a furious engagement commenced before the Colline gate. 
Sulla's right wing under Crassus was victorious, the left led 
by himself was driven back to the city, but the gates were 
shut against them, and they were forced back on the enemy. 
The engagement lasted till late in the night. The whole 
number of the slain on both sides is said to have been fifty 
thousand, among whom was Telesinus, whose head and those 
of Marcius and Carrinas were cut off and exposed before 
Praeneste. Marius, in attempting to escape by a mine from 
that town, was killed by those who saw him coming out; 
others say he put an end to himself. His head was cut off 
and fixed on the Rostra by Sulla, who now assumed the title 
of Felix, or Fortunate. After his victory Sulla collected 
about six or eight thousand of his prisoners in a public place, 
near the temple of Bellona, whither he called the senate. 
As he was addressing them, the cries of the captives, whom 
the soldiers were slaughtering by his orders, reached their 
ears ; the fathers started, but he coolly desired them to attend 



348 HISTORY OF ROME. 

to him as it was only some bad persons who were being chas- 
tised by his orders. They saw then that the tyrant was 
changed, not the tyranny, 

Sulla and his partisans now gave a loose to their ven- 
geance ; murders were committed all over the city ; and the 
Marians were not alone the victims, as several took the op- 
portunity of killing their private enemies or their creditors. 
Universal terror prevailed : at length a young man named C. 
Metellus ventured, in the senate, to ask Sulla when there was 
to be ^n end of the slaughter. " We do not ask," said he, 
*' to save those whom you intend to destroy, but to free from 
apprehension those whom you mean to save." Sulla replied 
that he did not yet know whom he would spare. " Then 
tell us," said Metellus, " whom you will punish." Sulla 
said he would, and he at once posted (ptwscripsit) the names 
of eighty persons; next day he added two hundred and 
twenty names, and the folio v/ing day an equal number. He 
addressed the people, telling them that these were ail he 
could recollect at present, but that he would add any others 
that occurred to him, as he was resolved to spare none who 
had borne any command, or aided his enemies since the day 
that Scipio, as he alleged, had broken his engagement with 
him, but that if the people obeyed him he would make a 
salutary change in their condition,* 

In this proscripti07i, as it was named, lists of those in- 
cluded in it were hung up in the Forum, and a reward of 
50,000 sesterces was offered for each head ; it was made a 
capital offence to harbor or save any of the proscribed. 
The properties of all in the proscription lists were declared 
forfeit, and their children and grandchildren incapable of 
holding office in the state. 

In the present state of morals at Rome the effect of this 
proscription may be easily conceived. Men were fallen on 
and butchered in the face of day in the streets and in the 
temples, and their heads cut off and brought before the 
tribunal of Sulla. Sons might be seen bearing the gory 
visages of their fathers, brothers those of their brothers, 
slaves those of their masters : wives closed their doors 
against their own husbands. 

>Fresh lists soon appeared ; some made interest with Sulla 
to have their private enemies proscribed, others those whose 
houses or lands they coveted. Q,. Aurelius, a quiet man 

* Appian says he then proscribed 40 senators and 1600 knights. 



DICTATORSHIP AND LAWS OF SULLA. 349 

who had abstained from politics, reading the proscription 
list one day in the Forum, saw his own name in it. " Alas ! " 
cried he, " my Alban estate has ruined me," and he had 
gone but a few steps when he was followed and slain. L. 
Catilina, afterwards so notorious, killed his own brother, 
and then applied to Sulla to have him put in the list. To 
evince his gratitude he soon after slew the praetor C. Marius 
Gratidianus with great cruelty at the tomb of Catulus, and, 
bringing his head to Sulla as he sat in the Forum, went 
coolly, before all the people, and washed his hands in 
the holy-water vessel at the adjoining temple of Apollo. 
Sulla himself always presided at the sale of the goods and 
properties of the proscribed, saying that he was selling his 
spoils ; and many of his friends, such as his step-son ^Emilius 
Scaurus, and M. Licinius Crassus, were enabled to acquire 
immense fortunes by their purchases at these sales. 

Sulla's atrocities were not confined to Rome. Murder and 
confiscation spread all through Italy ; the states and towns 
which had aided Cinna, Carbo, or his other foes with men, 
money, or in any other way, were called to a severe reckon- 
ing, their citadels and walls were pulled down, and heavy 
fines or taxes imposed on them. Some, especially in Tus- 
cany, were depopulated, and the houses and lands given to 
his soldiers, for whom he also founded other colonies, and 
thus provided his three-and-twenty legions with lands. 

The great object of Sulla was to break down the democ- 
racy, and to reestablish the ancient aristocratic form of the 
constitution. For this purpose he resolved to revive in his 
own person the dictatorship, which had now been out of use 
one hundred and twenty years. As there were no consuls 
he directed the senate to appoint an interrex : M. Valerius 
Flaccus was chosen, and acting under the directions of Sulla 
he proposed to the people to create him dictator for as long 
a time as might suffice to regulate the city and all Italy, that 
is, to give him the office for as long as he might choose to 
hold it# The people of course voted as required, and Sulla 
now appeared v/ith four-and-twenty lictors and a strong 
gruard. He allowed, however, M. Tullius and Cn. Cornelius 
Dolabella to be chosen consuls for the next year. 

While Sulla was thus engaged in Italy, Pompeius ,4iad 
passed over to Sicily. Perperna, who was in the island, 
quitted it when he landed : and shortly after Carbo, who was 
coming thither from Africa, was made a prisoner and led in 
chains before the young general's tribunal. Pompeius, after 
30 



350 HISTORY OF ROME. 

reproaching him bitterly, ordered him to be executed, though 
Carbo when in power had befriended him and prevented 
his property from being confiscated. Pompeius then passed 
over to Africa, and having defeated Cinna's son-in-law 
Domitius, reduced it within forty days. Though he was only 
a knight, and had never been consul or praetor, Sulla allowed 
him to triumph. On this occasion the dictator gave him the 
title of Magnus — Great. 

We will enumerate the principal of the Cornelian laws, as 
those now passed by Sulla were named. First, respecting 
the colleges of priests, the Domitian law was repealed, and 
the right of coopting their members restol"ed to the sacred 
colleges; the number of the pontiffs and augurs was raised 
from ten to fifteen. Respecting the magistracies, no one 
was to be praetor before qusestor, or consul before prsetor ; 
twenty quaestors to be chosen annually, partly by the people, 
partly by the consuls; in like manner the number of prEetors 
to be raised from six to eight; those who had been tribunes to 
be incapable of the higher offices, and the tribunes not to 
have the power of proposing laws. He restored the judicial 
power to the senators, and prohibited any one from challen- 
ging more than three jurors, and they were to give their ver- 
dict openly or secretly at the option of the accused. It was 
also forbidden to any governor to go out of his province or 
to make war without the consent of the senate and people. 
The laws against extortion in the provinces were made more 
strict, it being Sulla's wish to attach the provincials to the 
government. Sumptuary and other laws relating to morals 
were passed ; in that against assassins especial care was taken 
to exempt those who had murdered the proscribed. As the 
senate was now greatly reduced, Sulla augmented it by 
three hundred members from the equestrian order, each of 
them being chosen by the comitia of the tribes. He also 
selected ten thousand of the slaves of the proscribed, to 
whom he gave their liberty, and enrolled them in the tribes 
under the name of Cornelians. These men were therefore 
always at his devotion, and his old soldiers were ready to 
appear when summoned, so that he was under no apprehen- 
sion for his power. 

Sulla showed in the case ofL. Lucretius Ofella that he 
would have his laws obeyed, for when he saw him suing 
for the consulate without having been quaestor or praetor, he 
sent to tell him to desist. Ofella taking no notice of the 
warning, a centurion was despatched to kill him ; and when 



SULLA S DEATH. 351 

the people seized the centurion for the murder, and brought 
him before Sulla, he said it was done by his order, 
adding, " A ploughman was one time annoyed by the 
vermin ; he stopped the plough twice and shook his coat, and 
when they still bit him he burned the coat not to lose 
his time ; so I advise those who have been twice overcome 
not to expose themselves the third time to the fire." 

During the first year of his dictatorship (671) Sulla had 
himself and Metellus Pius chosen consuls for the following 
year. In 673, having had P. Servilius and Ap. Claudius 
elected, he, to the surprise of all men, laid down his office 
and retired into private life. The man who had put to death 
ninety senators, fifteen consulars, two thousand six hundred 
knights, besides having driven numbers into exile, and in 
whose struggle for the supremacy one hundred thousand men 
had perished, who had confiscated the property of towns and 
individuals to such an extent as had reduced thousands and 
thousands to beggary and desperation* — that man dismissed 
his lictors, walked alone about the Forum and the streets 
of Rome, calmly offering to account for any of his public 
actions! It is said that one day a young man followed him 
home cursing and reviling him, and that he bore it patiently, 
only saying, " That youth's conduct will teach another not to 
lay down such an office so readily." 

Sulla retired to Cumae, where he employed his time in 
writing his memoirs, in hunting and fishing, and in drink- 
ing and revelling with players and musicians. He was here 
attacked the very next year with the most odious of all dis- 
eases, [morbus pedicularis ,) a judgment, one might almost 
say, from heaven on him; and one day hearing that a magis- 
trate of the adjacent town of Puteoli was putting off the 
payment of a debt to the corporation expecting his death, 
he sent for him to his chamber and had him strangled before 
his eyes. The etertions he made caused him to throw up a 
quantity of blood, and he died that night, in the sixtieth year 
of his age, (674.) 

Though the Cornelian gens had hitherto always inhumed 
their dead, it was Sulla's desire that his body should be burnt, 
lest the impotent vengeance he had exercised on the remains 
of Marius might in a turn of affairs be directed against his 
own. After some opposition on the part of the consul Lepi- 
d|js, it was decided by the senate that his corpse should be 

* Appian, B. C. i. 203. 



352 HISTORY OF ROME. 

conveyed in state to Rome, and be burnt in the Field of 
Mars. It was carried on a golden bier, horsemen and trum- 
peters followed it, his old soldiers flocked from all parts to 
attend the procession : they moved in military array, standards 
and axes preceding the bier. The priests and vestals, the 
senate, magistrates, and knights, came forth to meet it ; more 
than two thousand golden crowns, the gifts of the towns, 
his legions, and his friends, were borne along; the Roman 
ladies contributed spices in such abundance that large figures 
of Sulla and a lictor were formed out of them, in addition to 
two hundred and twenty basketfuls which were to be flung 
on the pyre. The morning being lowering, the corpse was 
not brought out till toward evening ; but when the pyre was 
kindled, a strong breeze sprang up and the corpse was 
rapidly consumed ; an abundant rain then fell and quenched 
the embers, so that Sulla's good fortune seemed to attend 
him to the last. 

Sulla composed his own epitaph, the purport of which 
was, that no one had ever exceeded him in serving his 
friends, or in injuring his enemies. He was a man doubt- 
less of great talents, both as a general and a statesman, but 
never did a more ruthless soul animate a human body than 
his ; he was cruel, less from natural ferocity than from a 
calm contempt of human nature. He thoroughly despised 
mankind ; therefore, he was an aristocrat,* and therefore 
he ventured to lay down his power, confident that none would 
dare to attack him, and not in reliance on his soldiers or 
his Cornelians, for how could they protect him against the 
dagger of the assassin ? In this contempt of mankind he 
resembled Napoleon, as he also did in his superstitious 
belief in fortune, and in the circumstance of havinor left the 
world an account of his actions written by himself; but 
Napoleon was incapable of Sulla's cold-blooded cruelty. 

* Let us not be misunderstood; we mean that a proud man, like 
Sulla, who thinks thus of human nature, will be in general an aristo- 
crat, — not that pride and contempt of mankind are by any means the 
necessary characteristics of an aristocracy. The demagogue is usually 
of the same way of thinking, but he is mean enough to flatter those 
v>7hom he despises. The honest democrat, on the contrary, is often a 
man of the most amiable and generous character, and his error is that 
of judging of others by himself. Bias' maxim ol nXalovg xaxoi (' most 
men are bad,' that is, selfish) should always be present to Uie mind of 
a politician, and he should think how they, not how the good, wonid 
act under any given circumstances. 



SEDITION OF LEPIDUS. 353 



CHAPTER v.* 

SEDITION OF LEPIDUS. SERTORIAN WAR IN SPAIN. DEATH 

OF SERTORIUS, AND END OF THE WAR. SPARTACIAN OR 

GLADIATORIAL WAR. DEFEAT AND DEATH OF SPARTA- 

CUS. CONSULATE OF POMPEIUS AND CRASSUS. PIRATIC 

WAR. REDUCTION OF CRETE. 

The consuls of the year in which Sulla died were Q. 
Lutatius Catulus of the Sullian, and M. ^milius Lepidus 
of the Marian party ; the latter had been chosen through the 
influence of Pompeius, contrary to the opinion of Sulla, 
who warned him of the consequences of what he had done. 
Events proved the dictator's foresight, for no sooner was the 
funeral over than Lepidus proposed a law to recall the pro- 
scribed, and to rescind all the acts of Sulla. The first 
measure seems but barely just, yet it would in fact have been 
a renewal of the civi-l war. The senate, therefore, headed 
by Catulus, the best man of his time, opposed it. Lepidus 
retired into Etruria, and drew together an army of the pro- 
scribed and others: and the senate, to prevent a conflict, 
gave him Cisalpine Gaul as his province. But at the end of 
his year Lepidus, leaving M. Junius Brutus in charge of 
Gaul, led his troops toward Rome, demanding the consulate 
a second time. He Avas declared an enemy ; Catulus headed 
an army to oppose him, while Pompeius was sent into Gaul 
against Brutus. Lepidus was defeated in a battle near the 
Mulvian bridge, and driven into Etruria, where he was 
routed a second time : he then fled to Sardinia. Pompeius 
meantime had reduced Cisalpine Gaul, but his conduct to 
Brutus on this occasion was a great stain on his character. 
Brutus had surrendered, and by his direction had retired to 
a town on the Po : the next day there came a man named 
Geminius, sent by Pompeius, who put him to death. Lepi- 
dus died shortly after he reached Sardinia, and the remains 
of his army were led into Spain by Perperna. 

The Marian cause was however not yet despaired of, for 
Sertorius, a man of first-rate talent, still upheld it in Spain. 
After the ruin of the cause in Italy, through the folly of the 

*Appian, B. C. i. 107—121. Velleuis, ii. 29—32. Dion, xxxvi. 
1—27. Plutarch, Sertorius, Pompeius, and Crassus. 

30 * s s 



354 HISTORY OF ROME. 

consul Scipio, Sertoriiis, whose advice he would not follow, 
set out with all haste for Spain, of which he had been ap- 
pointed prsBtor. He exerted himself to gain the affections 
of the people by justice and affability, and by the reduction 
of the tributes; and, knowing that Sulla would soon pursue 
him, he despatched a force of six thousand men to guard the 
Pyrenees ; but treachery aided C. Annius, whom Sulla sent 
as proconsul (671) to Spain, and Sertorius, unable to main- 
tain himself there, passed over to Africa, where, aiding one 
of the native princes, he defeated and killed Paccianus, one 
of Sulla's officers. V/hile considering what further course 
he should take, he was invited by the Lusitanians to come 
and be their leader against the troops of Sulla. He gladly 
accepted the command : and, uniting in himself the talents 
of a Viriathus and of a Roman general, equally adapted for 
the guerilla and the regular warfare, he speedily routed all 
the Roman commanders, and made himself master of the 
country south of the Ebro. He did not disdain having 
recourse to art to establish his influence over the natives. 
Having been presented by a hunter with a milk-white fawn, 
he tamed it so that it would come when called, and heeded 
not the noise and tumult of the camp, and he pretended that 
it had been a gift of a deity to him, and was inspired, and 
revealed distant or future events. He trained his Spanish 
troops after the Roman manner, and, having collected the 
children of the principal persons into the town of Osca, 
(Huesca,) he had them instructed in Greek and Latin litera- 
ture, that they might be fit for offices of state, though he had 
in this a further object in view, namely, that they should be 
hostages for the fidelity of their parents. So many Romans 
of the Marian party had repaired to him, that he formed a 
senate <of three hundred members, which he called the real 
senate, in opposition to that of Sulla. Though his troops 
were mostly all Spaniards, he gave the chief commands to 
the Romans : yet he did not thereby lose the affections of 
the natives. 

The fame of Sertorius reached the ears of Mithridates, 
who was now acrain at war with the Romans, and he sent to 
him to propose an alliance, on condition of all the country 
which he had been obliged to surrender beina restored to 
him. Sertorius, having assembled his senate, replied, that 
Mithridates might, if he pleased, occupy Cappadocia and 
Bithynia, but that he could not allow him to hold the Roman 
province. '' What would he not impose," said the king, 



SERTORIAN WAR IN SPAIN. 355 

" if sitting in Rome, when, thus driven to the edge of the 
Atlantic, he sets limits to my kingdom, and menaces me 
with war?" The alliance however was concluded, but it 
came to noucrht. 

Sulla had committed the war in Spain to Metellus Pius ; 
but Metellus, being only used to regular warfare, was quite 
perplexed by the irregular system adopted by Sertorius, and 
he was so hard pressed at the time of the fall of Lepidus, 
that Pompeius, with the consent of the senate, led his army 
to his aid, (676.) Sertorius at the same time received an 
accession of force, for Perperna having passed over to Spain 
with fifty-three cohorts, thinking to carry on the war inde- 
pendently, his men forced him to join Sertorius. 

The fame of Pompeius was so great, that when it was 
known that he was entering Spain several towns declared for 
him. Sertorius laid siege to one of these towns ; Pompeius 
came to its relief; he was preparing to occupy an adjacent 
hill, but Sertorius anticipated him. Thinking then that he 
had Sertorius in a trap between his army and the town, 
Pompeius sent in to tell the people to mount their walls and 
see Sertorius besieged. Sertorius, when he heard this, 
laughed, and said he would teach Sulla's pupil that a general 
should look behind as well as before, and pointed to six 
thousand men he had left in his camp. Pompeius feared to 
stir ; the town surrendered before his face, and Sertorius 
burned it, to prove how little able Pompeius was to aid 
revolters. 

At a place named Sucro, (Xucar,) he gave Pompeius 
battle, selecting the evening, as the night would be against 
the enemy, who knew not the country, whether victors or 
vanquished. He drt)ve back the wing opposed to him under 
L. Afranius, then sped away to the other, where Pompeius 
was gaining the advantage, and defeated him. Finding that 
Afranius had penetrated to his camp and was plundering it, 
he came and drove off his troops with great loss. Next day 
he offered battle again ; but just then Metellus came up. 
"If that old woman* had not come," said he, "I should 

* Metellus was not more than fifty-six years of age, but he had 
given himself up to luxurious habits, and had grown very corpulent. 
He was an amiable man. When Calidius, who had been the means 
of recalling his father, stood for the preetorship, Metellus canvassed for 
him, and, though consul, styled him his patron and the protector of 
his family. (Cicero, Plancus.) 



356 HISTORY OF ROME. 

have whipped this boy well, and sent him back to Rome." 
He then retired. 

Sertorius eventually reduced his opponents to such straits 
that it was apprehended he would even invade Italy. Pam- 
peius wrote word, that, unless supplied with money from 
home, he could not stand ; Metellus offered a large reward 
for Sertorius' head ; and envy and treachery at length re- 
lieved them from all their fears. Perperna had all along 
been jealous of Sertorius' superiority ; he did his utmost to 
alienate the affections of the Spaniards from him by exer- 
cising severities in his name, and he organized a conspiracy 
against him among the Romans. He finally invited him to 
a feast at Osca, and there he" was fallen on and murdered, 
(680.) Perperna hoped to be able to take his place, but 
the Spaniards, having no confidence in him, submitted to 
Pompeius and Metellus -, and, venturing to give battle with 
the troops he had remaining, he was defeated and taken. 
He had found among the papers of Sertorius letters from 
several of the leading men at Rome, inviting him to invade 
Italy, and these he offered to Pompeius to save his life ; but 
Pompeius nobly and wisely had these and all Sertorius' 
other papers burnt, without being read by himself or any 
one else, and he put Perperna to death without delay, lest 
he should mention names, and thus give occasion to new 
commotions. 

Thus, after a continuance of eight years, terminated the 
war in Spain. Meantime Italy was the scene of a contest 
of a most sanguinary and atrocious character. 

We have already related what an enormous slave-popula- 
tion there was in Italy, and how hardly the slaves were 
treated by their masters. The passion (ff the Roman people 
for the combats of gladiators had increased to such an extent, 
that it was become a kind of trade to train gladiators in 
schools, and hire them out to aediles, and all who wished to 
gratify the people with their combats ; and stout, strong 
slaves were purchased for this purpose. The cheapness of 
provisions in Campania made it a great seat of these schools, 
and here those in the school of one Lentulus Batuatus, at 
Capua, resolved (679) to break out, and, if they could not 
escape to their homes, to die fighting for their liberty, rather 
than slaughter one another for the gratification of a ferocious 
populace. Their plot was betrayed, but upwards of seventy 
got out, and, arming themselves with spits and cleavers from 
the adjoining cook-shops, they broke open other schools, and 



SPARTACIAN OR GLADIATORIAL WAR. 357 

freed those who were in them. Near the town they met a 
wagon laden with arms for the use of the schools in other 
towns ; and, having thus armed themselves, they took a 
strong position on Mount Vesuvius. Here they were joined 
by great numbers of slaves, and they routed the troops sent 
from Capua to attack them, and got possession of their arms. 
The chief command was given to Spartacus, a Thracian by 
birth, who had served in the Roman army, though he had 
been afterwards reduced to slavery ; and under him were 
two other gladiators, Crixus and CEnomaiJs. 

The praetor Claudius Pulcher was now sent against them 
with 3000 men. He forced them to retire to the summit of 
a steep hill, which had but one narrow approach. This he 
guarded straitly; but they made themselves ladders of the 
branches of the wild vine, with which the hill was overgrown, 
and let themselves down on the other side, and then suddenly 
fell on and routed the troops of the prcctor. Spartacus was 
now joined by vast numbers of the slaves who were employed 
as herdsmen. He armed them with such weapons as fortune 
offered, and he spread his ravages over all Campania and 
Lucania, plundering towns, villages, and country-houses. 
He defeated the prastor P. Varinius, his legate Furius, and 
his colleague Coscinius : but, aware that they would not 
eventually be able to resist the disciplined troops of Rome, 
Spartacus proposed that they should march for the Alps, 
and, if they reached them, then disperse and seek their 
native countries. This prudent plan was rejected by the 
sJAves, who, as they were now forty thousand strong, looked 
forward to the plunder of Italy. The senate meantime, 
aware of the importance which the war was assuming, di- 
rected (680) the consuls L. Gellius and Cn. Lentulus to take 
the field against them. The praetor Arrius engaging Crixus 
(who, with the Germans, had separated from Spartacus) in 
Apulia, killed him and twenty thousand of his men ; but he 
was soon after himself defeated by Spartacus, as al§o were 
both the consuls. Spartacus was now preparing to march 
against Rome at the head of 120,000 men ; but, as the 
consuls had posted themselves in Picenum to oppose him, 
he gave up his design and fell back to Thurii, which he 
made his head-quarters. 

The war against Spartacus had lasted nearly three years, 
the hopes of the Romans were in the preetor M. Licinius 
Crassus, to whom it was now committed, (681.) Six legions 
were raised, to which he joined those of the consuls which 



358 HISTORY OF ROME. 

had fought so ill, having previously decimated a part of 
them. Spartacus retired, on the approach of Crassus, to the 
point of Rhegium, where he agreed with some Cilician pi- 
rates to transport him and his men over to Sicily, hoping to 
be able to rouse the slaves there again to arms. The pirates 
agreed, took the money, and then sailed away, leaving them 
to their fate. Crassus, to prevent all escape, ran a ditch 
and wall across from sea to sea at the neck of the peninsula 
of Bruttium ; but Spartacus, taking advantage of a dark, 
stormy night, made his way over the rampart. A body of 
Gauls or Germans which separated from him was defeated 
by Crassus, who soon after gave Spartacus himself a signal 
defeat ; but the gladiator in his turn routed the qucestor and 
legate of Crassus. The confidence which this advantage 
gave the slaves caused their ruin ; for they would not obey 
their leader and continue a desultory war, but insisted on 
being led against the Romans. Crassus on his part was 
equally anxious for a battle, as Pompeius, who, at his desire, 
had been recalled by the senate, was now on his way, proba- 
bly to rob him of the glory of ending the war. The slaves 
were so eager for.the combat that they attacked as he was 
pitching his camp. A general engagement ensued : Spar- 
tacus fell fighting like a hero, and his whole army was cut 
to pieces : about six thousand who were taken were hung by 
Crassus from the trees along the road from Capua to Rome. 
Pompeius, however, came in for some share of the glory, 
for he met and destroyed a body of five thousand who were 
endeavoring to make their way to the Alps. The Servile 
War, in which it is said sixty thousand slaves perished, tiros 
terminated. Pompeius and Metellus triumphed for their 
successes in Spain : Crassus, on account of the mean con- 
dition of his foes, only sought the honor of an ovation. 

The enormous wealth of Crassus, and his eloquence, gave 
him great influence in the state, and he was one of the chief 
props of the aristocracy ; Pompeius on the other hand 
sought the favor of the people, whose idol he soon became. 
Both now stood for the consulate. Pompeius, though he 
had borne no previous office, as the Cornelian law required, 
and was several years under the legitimate age of forty-two 
years, was certain of his election : while Crassus could only 
succeed by Pompeius asking it for him as a favor to him- 
self They were both chosen, but their year (682) passed 
away in strife and contention. Before they v/ent out of 
office the people insisted on their becoming friends , and 



PIRATIC WAR. 359 

Crassus declaring that he did not think it unbecoming in 
him to make the first advances to one on whom senate and 
people had bestowed such honors at so early an age, they 
shook hands in presence of the people, and never again were 
at open enmity. In this consulate the tribunes were restored 
to all the rights and powers of which Sulla had deprived 
them ; the measure proceeded from Pompeius with a view to 
popular favor. With his consent also the prsetor L. Aurelius 
Cotta put the judicial power into the hands of the senators, 
knights, and the eerarian tribunes;* for the senators alone 
had shown themselves as corrupt as ever, and the knights, 
while the right had been exclusively theirs, had been no bet- 
ter. It was hoped that three separate verdicts might be more 
favorable to justice. 

Crassus now returned to his money-bags, and was wholly 
occupied in augmenting his already enormous wealth. Pom- 
peius, whose passion was glory, kept rather out of the public 
view, rarely entering the Forum, and when he did visit it 
being environed by a host of friends and clients. At length 
the alarming extent to which the pirates of Cilicia now 
carried their depredations gave him another opportunity of 
exercising extensive military command. 

From the most remote ages piracy had been practised in 
various parts of the Mediterranean sea. The Athenians, in 
the days of their might, had kept it down in the JEgean; 
the Rhodians had followed their example ; but when their 
naval power had been reduced by the Romans, the Cili- 
cians, who had been encouraged in piracy by the kings of 
Egypt and Syria in their contests with each other, carried 
on the system to an extent hitherto unparalleled. Not only 
did private persons join in this profitable trade, but whole 
towns and islands shared in it. The slave-market at Delos 
was abundantly supplied by the pirates ; the temples of 
Samothrace, Claros, arid other renowned sanctuaries Vv^ere 
plundered; towns on the coasts were taken and sacked; 
the piratic fleets penetrated to the straits of Gades. They 
landed in Italy, and carried off the Roman magistrates and 
the senators and their families, whom they set at heavy 
ransoms. They even had the audacity to make an attack on 
the port of Ostia: the corn-fleets destined for Rome were 
intercepted, and famine merjaced the city. 

* These were wealthy plebeians, to whom the qusestors issued the 
pay of the soldiers. 



360 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Fleets and troops had at t^arious times been sent against 
the pirates to no effect. In 674 P. Servilius put to sea with 
a strong fleet, and having routed their squadrons of light 
vessels, took several of their towns on the coast of Lycia, 
and reduced the country of Isauria, (677,) whence he gained 
the title o^ Isauricus. Biit he had hardly triumphed when the 
sea was again covered with swarms of pirates. The praetor 
M. Antonius (678) was then sent against them, with most 
extensive powers ; but he effected nothing ; their depreda- 
tions became as numerous as ever, and they even laid siege 
to the city of Syracuse. In this state of things the tribune 
A. Gabinius, (685,) either moved by Pompeius or hoping 
thereby to gain his favor, proposed that to one of the con- 
sulars should be given the command against the pirates, 
with absolute power for three years over the whole sea and 
the coasts to a distance of fifty miles inland, and authority 
to make levies and take money for the war out of the treas- 
ury and from the publicans in the provinces, and to raise 
what number of men he pleased. Though no one was 
named, all knew who was meant. The aristocratic party ex- 
erted themselves to the utmost against the law. Gabinius 
was near being killed in the senate-house : the people would 
then have massacred the senate, but they fled ; the consul C. 
Calpurnius Piso was indebted to Gabinius for his life. When 
the day for voting came, Pompeius spoke, affecting to de- 
cline the invidious honor; but Gabinius, as of course had 
been arranged, called on the people to elect him, and on him 
to obey the voice of his country. The tribunes Trebellius 
and L. Roscius attempted to interpose, but, like Tib, Gracchus, 
Gabinius put it to the vote to deprive Trebellius of his of- 
fice : when seventeen tribes had voted, Trebellius gave'orer, 
Roscius, as he could not be heard, held up two fingers, to 
intimate that he proposed that two persons should be ap- 
pointed ; but such a shout of disapprobation was raised that 
it is said a crow flying over the Forum fell down stunned. 
Catulus, the chief of the senate, being present, Gabinius 
called on him to speak, expecting that he would take warn- 
ing by the fate of the tribune, ^and not oppose the law. The 
people listened in respectful silence while he argued against 
it ; and when, in conclusion, having extolled Pompeius, he 
asked them whom, if any thing should happen to him, 
they would put in his place, the whole assembly cried out, 
*' Thyself, Q,, Catulus ! " Finding further opposition useless, 
he retired, and the law was passed. Pompeius, who had 



PIRATIC WAR. 361 

left the town, returned in the night, and next day he called 
an assembly, and had various additions made to the law 
which nearly doubled the force he was to have, givino- him 
500 ships, 120,000 foot and 5000 horse, with 24 senators 
to command as legates under him. Such was the general 
confidence in his talents and fortune, that the prices of corn 
and bread fell at once to their usual level. 

Pornpeius lost no time in making all the needful arrange- 
ments. He placed his legates with divisions of ships and 
troops along all the coasts from the straits of Gades to the 
-^gean ; and in the space of a few months the pirates were 
destroyed, or forced to take refuge in their strongholds in 
Cilicia. He sailed thither with a lEleet in person, and the 
reputation of his clemency making them deem it their safest 
course to submit, they surrendered themselves, their strong- 
holds, their ships, and stores; and thus, in forty-nine days 
after his departure from Brundisium, Pornpeius terminated 
the Piratic War. The pirates were not deceived in their ex- 
pectations : he placed them as colonists in Soli, i^dana, and 
other towns of Cilicia which had been depopulated by Ti- 
granes ; and even Dyme, in Achaia, received a portion of 
them to cultivate its territory, which was lying waste. 

In this year also the island of Crete was reduced. The 
Cretans, who appear so contemptible in Grecian history that 
one hardly knows how to give credit to the greatness of their 
Minos in the mythic ages, had of late become of rather more 
im.portance. M. Antonius, when he was sent against the 
pirates, hoping to acquire plunder and fame in Crete, ac- 
cused the Cretans, probably with justice, of being connected 
with them, and proceeded to invade the island ; but he was 
repulsed with disgrace. The Cretans, knowing that a storm 
would burst on them from Rome, tried to avert it by an 
embassy, laying all the blame on Antonius; but the terms 
offered by the senate were such as were beyond their power 
to fulfil, and they had to prepare for war. The proconsul 
Q,. Metellus invaded their island, (683:) under two chiefs 
named Lasthenes and Panares they hjeld out bravely for 
two years. The war was one of extermination on the part 
of Metellus, v/ho wasted the whole island with fire and 
sword; and, having at length reduced it, gained the honor 
of a triumph, and the title of Creticus, (6S5.) 

31 . TT 



362 HISTORY OF ROME. 



CHAPTER VI.* 

SECOND MITHRIDATIC WAR. THIRD MITHRIDATIC WAR. 

VICTORIES OF LUCULLUS. HIS JUSTICE TO THE PROVIN- 
CIALS. WAR WITH TIGRANES. DEFEAT OF TIGRANES. 

TAKING OF TIGRANOCERTA. INVASION OF ARMENIA. DE- 
FEAT OF A ROMAN ARMY. INTRIGUES OF LUCULLUs' ENE- 
MIES AT ROME. MANILIAN LAW. POMPEIUS IN ASIA. 

DEFEAT OF MITHRIDATES. POMPEIUS IN ARMENIA : IN 

ALBANIA AND IBERIA : IN SYRIA AND THE HOLY LAND. 

DEATH OF MITHRIDATES. RETURN AND TRIUMPH OF 

POMPEIUS. 

While the Roman arms were occupied in Europe by the 
Sertorian and the other wars above related, the contest with 
Mithridates for the dominion of Asia still continued. 

Sulla had left as proprEetor in Asia L. Licinius Murena, 
with Fimbria's two legions under him. As was the usual 
practice, Murena, in hopes of a triumph, tried to stir up a 
war. Archelaus, who had fled to him when he found him- 
self suspected by his master, furnishing him with pretexts, 
he invaded the territories of Mithridates, who, instead "of 
having recourse to arms, sent an embassy to Rome to com- 
plain, and Q,. Calidius came out with orders to ?»lurena to 
desist from attacking a king with whom there was a treaty. 
After a private conference with Calidius, however, Murena 
took no notice of the public order; and then Mithridates, 
finding that negotiation was of no use, took the field against 
him, and forced him to retire into Phrygia. Sulla, displeased 
at seeing the treaty he had made thus despised, sent out 
A. Gabinius with orders in earnest to Murena, and thus the 
war ended for the present. Murena had the honor of a 
triumph, but how merited it is not easy to see. 

Mithridates was well aware that he would soon be at 
war again ; and he found the period after the death of Sulla 
SO favorable, while the Roman arms were engaged in so 
many quarters, that he resolved to be the aggressor. At his 
impulsion his son-in-law Tigranes, of Armenia, invaded 
Cappadocia, and swept away three hundred thousand of its 

* Appian, Mithridatica, G4 to the end. Dion, xxxvi. 23 to the end ; 
xxxvii. 1 — 23. Plut., Lncnlliis and Pompeins. 



THIRD MITHRIDATIC WAR. 363 

:inhabitants, whom he sent to people the city of Tigranocerta, 
which he had lately built. Mithridates himself invaded 
Bithynia, which its last king, Nicomedes II., dying without 
heirs, (678,) had left to the Roman people. 

The Pontic monarch, knowing the contest in which he 
was now to engage to be for his very existence, made all 
the preparations calculated to insure its success. He sent 
to Spain and formed an lalliance with Sertorius ; he also 
made alliances with all the peoples round the Euxine ; du- 
ring eighteen months he bad timber felled in the forests of 
Pontus, and ships of war built ; he hired able seamen in 
Phcenicia, and laid up magazines of corn in the towns of 
the coast ; he armed and disciplined his troops in the Roman 
manner; and his army, we are told, amounted to 120,000 
foot, 16,000 horse, with 100 scythed chariots. Still these 
troops were Asiatics, and little able to cope with the legions 
of Rome. 

The war against Mithridates was committed to the con- 
suls of the year, (678,) M. Aurelius Cotta and L. Licinius Lu- 
cullus, the latter of whom had been Sulla's quasstor in the 
first war. Cotta was soon driven by Mithridates out of his 
province, Bithynia, and he was besieged in Chalcedon. 
When Lucullus came out, he brought with him one legion 
from Rome, which, joined with the twoFimbrian and two 
others already there, gave him a force of thirty thousand 
foot and sixteen hundred horse. Mithridates, being forced 
by him to raise the . siege of Chalcedon, led his troops 
against Cyzicus, a town lying in an island joined by two 
bridges to the main land. Lucullus followed him thither, 
and Mithridates, (by the treacherous advice of one of the 
Romans sent him by Sertorius, who assured him that the 
Fimbrian legions which had served under that general 
\yould desert,) let him without opposition occupy a hill, 
which enabled him to cut off his communication with the 
interior, so that he must get all his supplies by sea, and the 
v/inter was now at hand. 

The defence of the Cyzicenes was most heroic ; mounds, 
mines, rams, towers, and all the modes of attack then 
known were employed against them in vain. Mithridates, 
finding his cavalry useless, and that it was suffering from 
want of forage, sent away it and the beasts of burden, but 
Lucullus fell on it at the passage of the Ryndacus, killed 
a part, and took 15,000 men and 6000 horses with all the 
beasts of burden. A storm now came on and shattered 



364 IIISTOilY OF ROME. 

Mithridates' fleet ; all the horrors of famine were felt in his 
camp ; still he persevered, hoping to take the town. At 
length he got on shipboard by night, leaving his army to 
make the best of its way to Lampsacus. It reached the river 
-^sepus ; but while it was crossing that stream, which was 
now greatly swollen, the Romans came up and routed it with 
the loss of 20,000 men, (679.) 

A tremendous storm assailed and shattered the fleet of 
Mithridates, and he himself escaped with difficulty to Nico- 
med^a, whence he sent envoys and money on all sides to 
raise new troops, and to induce Tigranes and other princes 
to give him aid. Meantime Lucullus, having overcome in 
the ^gean a Pontic fleet which was sailing to aid Sparta- 
cus, advanced and entered Mithridates' paternal dominions, 
where the plunder was so abundant that a slave was sold for 
four drachmas and an ox for one. This however did not 
content the troops, they longed for the pillage of some weal- 
thy city, and loudly blamed their general for receiving the 
submission of the towns. To gratify them Lucullus formed 
the siege of Amisus and Themiscyra ; but these towns made 
a stout defence, and Mithridates, who was at Cabira, sent 
them abundant supplies of men, arms, and provisions. 

These sieges lasted through the winter. In the spring 
(680) Lucullus, leaving Murena before Amisus, advanced 
against Mithridates. As the king was so superior in cavalry, 
he kept along the hills, and finding a hunter in a cave, made 
him guide him till he came close to Cabira ; he there en- 
camped in a strong position, where he could not be forced 
to fight. As Lucullus drew his supplies from Cappadocia, 
the king, hoping by cutting them off" to reduce him to ex- 
tremity, sent his cavalry to intercept the convoys ; but his 
officers were so unskilful as to make their attacks in the nar- 
row passes instead of in the plains, where the superiority of 
their cavalry would be decisive ; and the consequence was, 
that they were completely defeated, and but a small portion 
of their troops reached the camp. Mithridates, having lost 
his cavalry, in which his strength lay, resolved to fly that 
very night. He summoned his friends to his tent, and in- 
formed them of his design : they immediately thought only 
of saving their property, and were sending it off" on beasts of 
burden. But the number of these was so great that they 
impeded one another in the gates; the noise called the at- 
tention of the soldiers, who finding themselves thus about to 
be abandoned, in their anger and terror began at once to 



WAR WITH TIGRANES. 365 

pull down the rampart and to fly in all directions. Mithri- 
dates vainly endeavored to restrain them ; he was obliged to 
join in the flight. Lucullus sent his horse in pursuit, and 
leading his infantry against the camp, gave orders to abstain 
from plunder and to slay without mercy; but the former 
command was little heeded by the greedy soldiery, and the 
king himself escaped captivity through the cupidity of his 
pursuers, who stopped to divide the gold with which a mule 
was laden. He reached Comana, whence he repaired to 
Tigranes, having sent the eunuch Bacchus to put all the 
women of his harem to death, lest they should fall into the 
hands of the Romans. 

Lucullus having sent his brother-in-law P. Clodius to Ti- 
granes to demand the surrender of Mithridates, proceeded 
(631) to reduce the Pontic towns and fortresses. Many 
surrendered ; Araisus, tieraclea, and others were taken; and 
Mithridates' son, Machares king of Bosporus, was received 
into friendship and alliance. The wretched condition of the 
people of the province of Asia next claimed the attention of 
Lucullus, for they were ground to the dust by the avarice 
and oppression of the Roman usurers and publicans. The 
fine of 20,000 talents imposed by Sulla had by addition of 
interest upon interest been raised to the enormous sum of 
120,000 talents ; they were obliged to sell the ornaments of 
their temples and public places, nay, it is added, their very 
sons and daughters, to satisfy their remorseless creditors. 
The remedies devised by Lucullus were simple, just, and 
efficacious ; he forbade more t^ian twelve per cent, interest 
to be paid, cut off the portion of interest due above the 
amount of the capital, assigned the creditor a fourth part of 
the debtor's income, and deprived him who charged com- 
pound interest of both capital and interest. In four years 
all incumbrances were cleared ofT and the provincials out of 
debt ! But great v/as the indignation of the worshipful 
company of knights, who farmed the revenues and lent out 
money ; they considered themselves treated with the utmost 
injustice, and they hired the demagogues at Rome to attack 
and abuse Lucullus, and at length succeeded in depriving 
him of his command ; but he had the blessings of the pro- 
vincials and the good-will of all honest men. 

P. Clodius had to go as far as Antioch on the Orontes, 

and there to wait the arrival of Tigranes, who was in Phce- 

nicia. While there he held secret communication with 

many of the towns subject to that monarch, and received 

31 * 



366 HISTORY OF ROME. 

their assurances of revolt when Lucullus should appear. 
When admitted (682) to an audience with the king, he 
rudely desired him to surrender Mithridates, or else to pre- 
pare for war. The offended despot set the Romans at defi- 
ance, and Clodius departed. Lucullus then returned to 
Pontus, and laid siege to and took the city of Sinope, (683;) 
and leaving one legion under Sornatius to keep possession 
of the country, he set out himself with two legions and five 
hundred horse to make war on the potent king of Armenia. 
He reached the Euphrates, and having passed it advanced 
to the Tigris unopposed ; then turning northwards he en- 
tered the mountains, directing his course for Tigranocerta. 
Meantime Tigranes was ignorant of the approach of the 
Romans, for, as he had cut off the head of the first who 
brought him tidings of it, as a spreader of false alarms, all 
others were deterred. At length Mithrobarzanes, one of his 
friends, venturing to assure him of the fact, he was ordered 
to take a body of horse and ride down the Romans, and to 
bring their leader captive ; Mithrobarzanes, however, was 
defeated and slain, and Lucullus laid sieo-e to Tiorranocerta. 
Tigranes, finding the danger so near, summoned troops 
from all parts of his empire, and assembled an immense 
army, containing, it is said, 150,000 heavy and 30,000 light 
infantry, 55,000 horse, of which 17,000 were in full armor, 
and 35,000 pioneers, and advanced to the relief of his capi- 
tal. Mithridates and his general Taxiles, who knew by 
experience how ill suited Asiatic troops were to cope with 
Europaeans, strongly urged Tigranes not to risk a general 
engagement, but to cut off the supplies, and thus reduce the 
Romans by famine. But the despot laughed these prudent 
counsels to scorn, and descended into the plain ; and when 
he saw the small appearance of the Roman army, he cried, 
" If they are come as ambassadors they are .too many, if as 
enemies too few." Never, however, was defeat more deci- 
sive than that of the Armenian kino;; he himself was one 
of the first to fly : the earth for miles was covered with the 
slain and with spoils, and the Romans declared themselves 
ashamed of having employed their arms against such cow- 
ardly slaves. Lucullus gave all the booty to his soldiers, and 
then resumed the sieo-e of Ticrranocerta, which its mingled 
population, who had been dragged from their homes to peo- 
ple it, gladly put into his hands. Having taken possession 
of the royal treasures for himself, he gave his soldiers per- 
mission to pillage the town, and he afterwards gave them^a 



INVASION OF ARMENIA. 367 

donation of 800 drachmas a man. The inhabitants of Ti- 
granocerta were allowed to return to their respective coun- 
tries. 

The fame of the justice and moderation of Lucullus 
caused several of the native princes to declare for him, (6S4,) 
and even the Parthian king sent an embassy to propose an 
alliance ; but Lucullus, having discovered that he was dealing 
double, being at the same time in treaty with Tigranes, 
resolved to make war on him, and thus perhaps acquire the 
glory of having overcome the three greatest monarchs in the 
world. He sent to Sornatius, desiring him to join him with 
the troops from Pontus ; but these positively refused to 
march ; and Lucullus' own army, hearing of their refusal, 
applauded their conduct and followed their example. Lu- 
cullus, thus forced to give up all hopes of glory from a Par- 
thian war, as it was now midsummer, invaded Armenia anew ; 
but, when he had crossed the ridges of Taurus, and entered 
on the plains, he was greatly dismayed to find the corn still 
green in that elevated land. He however obtained a suffi- 
cient supply in the villages, and, having vainly offered battle 
to the troops of Tigranes, he advanced to lay siege to Ar- 
taxata, the former capital of Armenia. As Tigranes' harem 
was in that city, he could not calmly see it invested, and he 
gave Lucullus battle on the road to it; but skill and disci- 
pline triumphed as usual over numbers, and he sustained a 
total defeat. Lucullus was desirous of following up his suc- 
cess and conquering the whole country, but it was now the 
autumnal equinox, and the snow began already to fall ; the 
rivers were frozen and difficult to cross, and the soldiers 
having advanced for a few days mutinied and refused to go 
any further. He implored them to remain till they had taken 
Artaxata ; but finding his entreaties to no purpose he evac- 
uated the country, and, entering Mygdonia, besieged and 
stormed the wealthy city of Nisibis. 

Here ended the glory of Lucullus : he was disliked by his 
whole army ; his extreme pride disgusted his officers ; the 
soldiers hated him for the rigorous discipline which he main- 
•tained, and his want of affability ; his having appropriated to 
himself so much of the spoils of Tigranocerta and other 
places was another cause of discontent ; and his own brother- 
in-law, Clodius, mortified at not being made more of than 
he was, added continual fuel to the flame, especially address- 
ing himself to those who had served under Fimbria. 

Meantime Mithridates had returned to Pontus, where he 



368 HISTORY OF ROME. 

attacked and defeated Fabius, who commanded there, and 
shut hmi up in Cabira. Triarius, who was on his way from 
the province to join Lucullus, came to the relief of Fabius 
and drove off Mithridates, whom he followed to Comagena, 
where he gave him a defeat. Both sides now retired to 
winter quarters. In the spring (685) Mithridates, knowing 
that Triarius had sent to summon Lucullus from Nisibis to 
his aid, did his utmost to bring on an action before he should 
arrive : for this purpose he despatched a part of his army to 
attack a fortress named Dadasa, where the baggage of the 
Romans lay. The soldiers, fearing the loss of their prop- 
erty, forced Triarius to lead them out. Before they had 
time to form, the barbarians assailed them on all sides, and 
they would have been utterly destroyed, but that one of them, 
feigning to be one of Mithridates' soldiers, went up to him 
and gave him a wound in the thigh. He was instantly slain, 
but the confusion caused by the danger of the king enabled 
many of the Romans to escape. Their loss however is 
stated at seven thousand men, among whom were twenty- 
four tribunes and one hundred and fifty centurions. It was 
rare indeed for the Romans to lose so many officers since the 
days of Hannibal. 

Lucullus' enemies at Rome were meantime not idle: they 
loudly accused him of protracting the war from ambition and 
avarice, and a decree of the people was procured, (686,) under 
the pretext of returning to the old practice of shortening the 
duration of military command, assigning to the consul M. 
Acilius Glabrio the province of Bithynia and Pontus, and di- 
recting that the Fimbrians and the oldest of the troops in Asia 
should have their discharge. Lucullus was encamped oppo- 
site the array of Mithridates when the proclamation of Gla- 
brio arrived, announcing that he was deprived of his command, 
giving their discharge to those who were serving under him, 
and menacing with the loss of their property those who did not 
obey the proclamation. The Fimbrian soldiers immediately 
left Lucullus ; he could do nothing vyith those who remained ; 
Q,. Marcius Rex, the consul of the preceding year, who was 
in Cilicia, declined giving him any aid, alleging that his. 
troops would not obey him, but probably influenced by 
Clodius, who was also his brother-in-law, and to whom he 
had given the command of the fleet. Glabrio remained 
inactive in Bithynia, and the two kings recovered the whole 
of their dominions. 

Such was the state of things in the East when the tribune 



MANILIAN LAW. 369 

C. Manilius, with the private view, it is said,* of gaining the 
favor and protection of Pompeius, brought in a bill, giving 
hira, in addition to the command and the forces he had 
against the pirates, the conduct of the war against Tigranes 
and Mithridates, with the troops and provinces which Lucul- 
lus had, and also those of the proconsuls Glabrio and Mar- 
cius, — in short, placing the whole power of the republic at 
his disposal. This measure was viewed with just dread and 
apprehension by the aristocracy, who plainly saw that the 
giddy, thoughtless populace were thus creating a monarch, 
and they opposed it to the utmost. Hortensius and Catulus 
employed all their eloquence against it. " Look out," cried 
the latter to the senate from the Rostra, " look out for some 
hill and precipice like our ancestors, whither you may fly to 
preserve our liberty. "t The bill was supported by C. Julius 
CcBsar and by M. Tullius Cicero, — not, says the historian, | 
out of regard to Pompeius or that they thought it good for 
the state, but because they knew it must pass; the former, 
who had already formed the plan he afterwards executed, 
wished to court the populace and establish a precedent, and, 
by heaping honors on Pompeius, to make him the sooner 
odious to the people; the latter, a vain man, wanted to dis- 
play his own importance, by showing that whatever side he 
took would have the superiority. The bill was passed by all 
the tribes, and the Republic was now virtually at an end. 

Pompeius received the intelligence of his appointment 
v/ith complaints of not being allowed to retire into private 
life, for which he longed so much ; but his very friends were 
disgusted with this hypocrisy, as his actions soon proved it 
to be. His first care was to reverse all the acts of Lucullus, 
to prove to all the people there that his power was at an 
end ; he also called all his troops from him, and took espe- 
cial care to reenroll the Fimbrians, who had shown them- 
selves so refractory to him. The two commanders then had 
a conference in a plain of Galatia. They at first behaved to 
one another with great courtesy ; but they soon gave vent 

* " Semper venaliset aliens minister potentiss " is Velleius' character 
of Manilios. 

t Plat., Pomp. 30. It is doubtful whether the allusion is to the Sa- 
cred Mount or the Capitol. 

t Dion, xxxvi. 26. This writer is frequently unjust toward Cicero 
The orator on this occasion seems to have sought the favor of Pom- 
peius; perhaps he really thought the measure necessary. He was also 
at all times anxious to gain favor with the knights, who were now hos- 
tile to Lucullus. 

u u 



370 HISTORY OF ROME. 

to their ill feeling, Pompeius reproaching Lucuilus with his 
avarice, the latter replying by likening his rival to the bird 
that comes to feed on the carcasses of those slain by others, 
affirming that he was doing now what he had. before done in 
the cases of Lepidus, Sertorius, and Spartacus, who had 
been vanquished by Catulus, Metellus, and Crassus, when he 
came to share their fame, — a reproach in which there wag 
no little truth. Pompeius took all I^ucullus' troops from 
him but sixteen hundred men, whom he knew to be inimical 
to him and would be useless to himself 

Mithridates, aware of the immense force that could now 
be brought against him, sent to ask on Vv^hat terms p.eace 
might be had. The answer was, the surrender of the de- 
serters and Kis own unconditional submission. As worse 
could not be expected in any case, he resolved to try once 
more the fate of war ; and, assembling the deserters, and as- 
suring them that it was on their account he refused peace, 
he swore eternal hostility to Rome : he then retired before 
the Romans, laying the country waste. Pompeius entered 
Armenia, and Mithridates, fearing for it, came and encamped 
on a hill opposite him, cutting off his supplies, but giving no 
opportunity of fighting. His position was so strong that 
Pompeius did not venture to attack him ; by decamping, 
however, he drew him down, and then, laying an ambuscade, 
cut off several of his men. Soon after, Pompeius being 
joined by the troops of Marcius, Mithridates* broke up by 
night and marched for Tigranes' part of Armenia. Pom- 
peius pursued, anxious to bring him to a battle, but, Mith- 
ridates encamping by day and marching by night, he 
could not succeed till they came to the frontiers : then 
taking advantage of the midday repose of the barbarians, 
Pompeius marched on before them, and coming to a hollow 
between hills through which they were to pass, he halted, 
and placed his troops on the hills. At nightfall the barba- 
rians set forth, unsuspicious of danger ; it was dark night 
when they entered the hollow; suddenly their ears were 
assailed by the sound of the trumpets of the Romans, and 
the clashing of their arms and their shouts over their heads, 
and arrows, darts, and stones were showered down upon 
them, and then the Romans fell on with their swords and 
pila. The slaughter was great and promiscuous, none could 
make any resistance in the dark ; and when the moon at 
length rose, it favored the Romans by being behind their 
backs, and thus lengthening their shadows. 



POMPEIUS IN ASIA. 371 

Mithridates, having escaped, was proceeding to Tigranes ; 
but this king, irritated by his misfortunes, and attributing 
the conduct of his son, who was in rebellion against him, to 
the councils of Mithridates, refused him an asylum, and 
even, it is said, set a reward on his head. He therefore 
turned and directed his course for Colchis, whence he went 
an to the MoBOtis and Bosporus, where he caused his son 
Machares, who had joined the Romans, to be put to death, 
and employed himself in making further preparations for 
continuing the war. Pompeius, when ''he found he had 
passed the Phasis, gave up all thoughts of pursuit, and em- 
ployed himself in founding a city named Nicopolis in the 
country where he had gained his victory, settling in it his 
wounded and invalid soldiers, and such of the neighboring 
people as chose to make it their abode. 

The young Tigranes had fled to Phraates king of the 
Parthians, who was his father-in-law ; and, as Phraates had 
formed an alliance with Pompeius, and promised to make a 
diversion in his favor, he now joined the young prince in an 
invasion of Armenia. They advanced and laid siege to Ar- 
taxata: the old king fled to the mountains; and Phraates, 
leaving a part of his forces with Tigranes to continue the 
siege, which seemed likely to be tedious, returned to his 
own dominions. The elder Tigranes then came down and 
defeated his son, who at first was flying to Mithridates ; but 
learning that he was himself a fugitive, he repaired to Pom- 
peius, and became his guide into Armenia. Pompeius had 
passed the Araxes and was approaching Artaxata, when 
Tigranes, whose proposals for peace had been hitherto frus- 
trated by his son, embraced the resolution of surrendering 
his capital, and coming himself as a suppliant to the Ro- 
man general. He laid aside most of the ensigns of his dignity, 
and approaching the camp on horseback, was preparing 
after the oriental fashion to ride into it, when a lictor met 
and told him that it was not permitted to any one to enter a 
Roman camp on horseback. He then advanced on foot, 
and coming to the tribunal of Pompeius, cast himself on the 
ground before him. The Roman general raised and con- 
soled the humbled monarch ; while his son, who was sitting 
beside the tribunal, did not rise or take any notice of him, 
and when Pompeius invited the king to supper the young 
prince did not appear at it ; conduct which drew on him the 
aversion of Pompeius, who, next day, having heard both 
parties, decided that the king should retain his paternal 



372 HISTORY OF ROME. 

doxninions, giving up all his conquests and paying 6000 tal- 
ents, and the prince have the provinces of Gordyene and 
Sophene. As the treasures were in this last country, the 
prince claimed them, and he irritated Pompeius so much, 
that at length he laid him in bonds and reserved him for his 
triumph. 

Pompeius wintered in Armenia, forming three separate 
camps on the banks of the Cyrnus, (Kur.) Orceses, king of 
the neighboring Albanians, having been in alliance with the 
young Tigranes, and fearing that his country would be in- 
vaded in the spring, resolved to fall on the Romans while 
they were separate. In the very depth of the winter, there- 
fore, he made three simultaneous attacks on their camps ; 
but his troops were every where driven off with loss, and he 
was obliged to sue for a truce. 

When spring came, (637,) Pompeius advanced into the 
country of the Iberians, whose king gave hostages and made 
a peace. Pompeius then entered Colchis, intending to 
pursue Mithridates ; but when he heard what difficulties he 
would have to encounter, he gave up the project, and return- 
ing to Albania again defeated Orceses. He then made peace 
with the Albanians and several of the tribes that dwelt 
toward the Caspian. Returning to Pontus, he received the 
submission of several of Mithridates' governors and officers; 
large treasures were put into his hands, all of Vv'hich, unlike 
Lucullus, he delivered up to the qufestors ; and he sent 
Mithridates' concubines uninjured to their parents and 
friends. 

Having regulated the affairs of this part of Asia, Pompe- 
ius proceeded to take possession of the part of Syria which 
had been conquered by Tigranes. All the cities submitted 
at his approach ; the Arabian emirs did him homage, and he 
reduced Syria to a province. In the summer of the follow- 
ing year (688) he had to return to Armenia to tlie aid of 
Tigranes, who had been attacked by Phraates. He thence 
proceeded to Pontus, where he wintered. 

At Damascus the next year (689) Pompeius was waited 
on by the two brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobiilus, who were 
contending for the high-priesthood at Jerusalem, and now 
appeared as suitors for the favor of the pov/erful Roman. 
As Pompeius inclined to the former, Aristobulus secretly 
retired to the Holy City, and the Roman legions entered 
Judaea for the first time. Knowing his inability to resist, 
Aristobulus gave himself up, to remain as a prisoner tUl the 



DEATH OF MITHRIDATES. 373 

gates of Jerusalem should be opened and his treasures de- 
livered up to the Romans. But when A. Gabinius, who was 
sent to take possession of the city, appeared, the gates were 
closed against him : Ponipeius, accusing Aristobulus of treach- 
ery, put him into close confinement and advanced to lay 
siege to the city. Timber for the construction of machines 
was brought from Tyre ; but, though the friends of Hyrcanus 
admitted the Romans into the lower town, the temple was 
so bravely defended that the siege lasted three months ; and 
it was only by taking advantage of the Sabbath, on which 
the superstition of the Jews would not let them defend them- 
selves, and storming on that day, that it was taken. Pompeius, 
it is said, entered into the Holy of Holies of the temple, but 
he took away none of the sacred treasures ; the priesthood 
was given to Hyrcanus ; all the conquests made by his 
predecessors vi^ere taken from him, and an annual tribute 
was imposed on the land. 

When Pompeius was about to form the siege of Jerusa- 
lem, tidings came to him of the death of Mithridates, This 
persevering monarch, undismayed by his reverses, had, it is 
said, formed the bold plan of eifecting a union of the various 
tribes and nations dwelling from the Mseotis to the Alps, and 
at their head descending on Italy while Pompeius was away 
in Syria. His friends and officers, however, shrank from 
this daring project, and thought rather of making their peace 
with the Romans ; some of them had even carried off his 
children, and put them into Pompeius' hands. This made 
the old king suspicious and cruel, and he' put some of his 
sons to death. His son Pharnacea, fearing for himself, and 
expecting to get the kingdom from the Romans, conspired 
against him in the city of Panticapseum, where they were 
residing. Mithridates on learning the conspiracy sent his 
guards to seize the rebel, but they went over to his side, and 
the citizens also declared for him. Having vainly sent to 
ask permission to depart, and seeing that all was now over, 
the aged monarch retired into the palace, and, taking the 
poison which he had always ready, he gave part of it to his 
two virgin daughters and drank the remainder himself The 
princesses died immediately ; but his body had, it is said, 
been so fortified with antidotes, that the poison took little 
effect on him. He then implored a Gallic chief not to let 
him endure the disgrace of being led in triumph, and the 
Gaul despatched him with his sword. 

Thus perished in the seventy-third year of his age, and 
32 



3T4 HISTORY OF ROME. ' 

after a contest of twenty-seven years with Rome, the king 
of Pontus, a man certainly to be classed among those whom 
we denominate great. Enterprising, ambitious, of great 
strength and dexterity of mind and body, quick to discern 
advantages, unscrupulous as to means, utterly careless of 
human life, and therefore at times barbarously cruel, his 
greatness was that of an Asiatic, and his character will find 
many a parallel, though not many an equal, in Oriental his- 
tory. As a proof of his mental powers, we are told that, 
ruling over twenty-two different peoples, he could converse 
with each of them in their own language. 

Pompeius, giving up all thoughts of Arabia, of which he 
had proposed the conquest, returned to Pontus. At Amisus 
he was met by envoys bearing the submission of Pharnaces, 
with presents and the embalmed body of Mithrid^tes and 
his royal ornaments. The Roman general, who warred not 
with the dead, sent the corpse for interment to Sinope. He 
confirmed Pharnaces in the kingdom of Bosporus, and re- 
duced Pontus to a province ; and, having wintered at Ephe- 
sus, he set out (690) on his return for Italy. Great appre- 
hension was felt at Rome, as it was surely expected that, 
elate with conquest and possessed of such power, he would 
lead his army to the city and make himself absolute. But, 
true to his character, on landing at Brundisium he dismissed 
his soldiers to their homes, only requiring them to appear at 
his triumph, and then, attended by his friends alone, he set 
out for Rome. 

His triumph, which took place the following year (691) 
and lasted for two days, was the most magnificent Rome had 
as yet seen. The names of the numerous kings and peoples 
he had warred with were proclaimed aloud ; the immense 
treasures and spoils he had won were displayed ; pictures of 
towns and battles and other events were borne alono- ; the 
captive prmces, Tigranes, Aristobulus, and others, with their 
families, walked in procession ; the images of Mithridates, 
the elder Tigranes, and other absent princes were carried ; 
a table declared the numbers of ships that had been taken" 
and cities founded, and the names of the Itmgs who had 
been conquered. Pompeius appeared in a stately chariot, 
followed by his officers and his whole army, horse and foot. 
Contrary to the usual practice, none of the captive princes 
were put to death. The money brought into the treasury 
amounted to 20,000 talents, besides 16,000 which he had 



catilina's conspiracy. 375 

distributed among his soldiers, the lowest sum given to any 
of them being 1500 drachmas. 

Even before he came to Rome, a decree had been passed 
allowing him to wear a triumphal robe at the Circensian 
games, the jjrmtexta at all others, and a laurel wreath at all. 
He had however the modesty to take advantage but once of 
this decree. 



CHAPTER VH.* 

catilina's conspiracy. ARREST AND EXECUTION OF THE 

CONSPIRATORS. DEFEAT AND DEATH OF CATILINA. 

HONORS GIVEN TO CICERO. FACTIOUS ATTEMPTS AT 

ROME. CLODIUS VIOLATES THE MYSTERIES OF THE BONA 

DEA. HIS TRIAL. 

While Pompeius was absent in the- East, a conspiracy was 
discovered and suppressed at Rome, which from the rank 
of those engaged in it, and the atrocious means resorted to 
to accomplish the most nefarious objects, sets in a strong 
light the state of moral corruption among the Roman nobil- 
ity of this time, and shows that no form of government but 
the single power of monarchy was adequate to maintaining 
the state, 

L. Sergius Catilina, a member of one of the oldest patri- 
cian families, was a man of very great powers of mind and 
body, but from his youth familiar with every species of 
crime. In the time of Sulla he was the murderer of his 
own brother ; he afterwards, it was firmly believed, put his 
own son out of the way, to make room for his marriage 
with a beautiful but abandoned woman ; and he was ac- 
cused of various other enormities. He had been prastor 
(6S6) in Africa, and he aspired to the consulate ; but he 
only regarded this high office as the means of relieving his 
desperate circumstances, by renewing scenes of proscription, 
bloodshed, and robbery, similar to those in which he had 
acted in the days of Sulla. 

Catilina had collected around him a vast number of des- 

'■ SalluBt, CatUina. Appian, B. C. ii. 1 — 7, Dion, xxxvii. 24 — 46. 
Flat, Cicero and Csesar. 



376 _ HISTORY OF ROME. 

peradoes of every description, — all bankrupts in fame and 
fortune, all who had been punished or feared punishment for 
their crimes, all in fine who had any thing to hope from a 
revolution. He sought by every means to inveigle young 
men of family, and for this purpose spared no expense to 
gratify their propensities and vices. But it was not such 
alone that were engaged in his designs ; they were shared in 
by some of the first men in Rome, magistrates, senators, and 
knights. In an assembly which met on one occasion at his 
house, when he unfolded his views, there were present, of 
the senatorian order, P. Lentulus Sura, C. Cethegus, P. and 
Ser. Sulla, (all of the Cornelian gens,) L. Cassius Longinus, 
P. Autronius, L. Vargunteius, Q,, Annius, M. Porcius Laeca, 
L. Calpurnius Bestia, and Q,. Curius ; of the equestrian, 
M. Fulvius Nobilior, L. Statilius, P. Gabinius Capito, C. 
Cornelius. It was thought too that M. Licinius Crassus and 
C. Julius Cessar knew at least of the conspiracy. Several 
women of rank were also engaged in it, as Catilina expected 
them to be useful in raising the slaves, in firing the city, in 
gaining over, or, if not, in murdering, their husbands. The 
young noblemen in general were favorably disposed to it ; 
several leading men in the colonies and municipal tow^ns 
joined in it ; and it was reckoned that Sulla's soldiers, who 
had dissipated their gains, would be easily brought to take 
arms again, along with those whom he had robbed of their 
lands. 

The meeting alluded to was held about the kalends of 
June, 688 ; and Catilina, having addressed the conspirators 
in the strain usual on such occasions, representing them as 
the most injured and unhappy of mortals, and the possessors 
of wealth as the most oppressive of tyrants, called on them 
to aid in every way to gain him the consulate ; promising in 
return the abolition of debts, proscription of the wealthy, the 
possession of the lucrative priesthoods and magistracies, and 
rapine and plunder of every kind. It was even reported, 
that before they separated they bound themselves by an oath, 
drinking human blood mingled with wine. 

A woman was the cause of the affair comincr to licrht. 
Curius, who carried on an intrigue with a lady named 
Fulvia, had been of late rather slighted by her, as he was 
not able from poverty to make her presents as heretofore : 
but he now completely altered his tone, boasting of the 
wealth he should have, and treating her with the greatest 
insolence. Fulvia, guessing that there must be some secret 



catilina's conspiracy, 377 

cause for such a change, never ceased U\\ she had drawn 
the truth from him ; and she made known what she had 
heard without naming her author. The nobility, whose pride 
had hitherto made tiiem adverse to Cicero's getting the con- 
sulate, as he was what was called a 7icw man, now being 
menaced with ruin, and knowing him to be the only man 
able effectually to oppose Catilina, gave him their support, 
and he and C. Antonius were elected. 

Catilina, though disappointed, did not despair; he resolved 
to stand for the consulate again, (6S9:) he exerted himself 
to gain more associates at Rome and throughout Italy ; and, 
having borrowed money on his own and his friends' credit, 
he sent it to Faesula) to one C. Mallius, one of Sulla's old 
officers, to enable him to raise troops. He also made every 
effort to have Cicero taken off; but this able consul went 
always well guarded, and having, through Fulvia, gained over 
Curius, he received reo^ular information of Catilina's desig^ns; 
he also, by giving his colleague the choice of provinces, se- 
cured his fidelity to the state. 

The day of election came, and Catilina was again foiled. 
He now became desperate and resolved on war, for which 
purpose he sent Mallius back to Ffiesulse, C, Julius to Apulia, 
and one Septimius to Picenum, and others to other places ; 
then, assembling the principal conspirators and upbraiding 
them with their inertness, he declared his intention of set- 
ting out for Mallius' army, but that he must first have an 
end put to Cicero, who impeded all his plans. A senator 
and a knio-ht, L. Varaunteius and C. Cornelius, forthwith 
offered to go that very night with armed men to the con- 
sul's house, and, under pretence of saluting, to murder him. 
Curius, as no time was to be lost, hastened to Fulvia ; the 
consul was warned in time, and his doors were closed 
against the assassins. Cicero, having also ascertained that 
Mallius was actually in arms, saw that there was no further 
room for delay ; he laid the whole matter before the senate, 
and it was decreed in the usual form that the consuls 
should take measures for the safety of the state. The prae- 
tors and other officers were sent to x4ipulia and elsewhere to 
provide against emergencies ; guards were placed at Rome ; 
the gladiators were removed to Capua and other towns ; 
rewards were offered for information, to a slave his freedom 
and 100,000 sesterces, to a freeman double that sum and a 
pardon. 

At length Catilina, as if he v/ere the victim of persecution, 
32* vv 



378 HISTORY OF ROME. 

boldly entered the senate and faced his foes. Cicero's anger 
was roused at the sight of him ; he poured forth a flood of 
indignant oratory : the overwhelmed traitor muttered some 
sentences of exculpation ; the whole senate called him an 
enemy and a parricide; he then flung off the mask; in a 
fury he cried out that he would quench the flames raised 
around him in the ruins of his country, and hurried to his 
home. Then, having directed Lentulus and the others how 
to act, he set out that night with a few companions for the 
camp of Mallius. On his way he wrote to several consul ars, 
saying that he was going into exile at Massilia : it was, how- 
ever, soon ascertained that he had entered the rebel camp 
with fasces and other consular ornaments. The senate then 
proclaimed him and Mallius public enemies, and offered a 
pardon to all those, not guilty of capital crimes, who should 
quit them before a certain day ; but neither this nor the 
former decree had the slightest effect, such was the general 
appetite for change, for blood, and for rapine. 

Lentulus meantim^e was exerting himself to gain associates, 
and, as there happened to be ambassadors from the Allobroges 
then at Rome, — come, as usual, to try if they could get re- 
dress from the senate for the oppression of the Roman gov- 
ernors, — he had them sounded by one Umbrenus, and, when. 
they eagerly caught at hopes of relief, Umbrenus introduced 
them to Gabinius and informed them of the conspiracy, 
telling them the names of those engaged in it, and mention- 
ing among others many innocent persons. They agreed 
on the part of their nation to join it ; but afterwards, when 
they reflected coolly on the matter, they thought the course 
too hazardous, and went and revealed all they knew to 
Q. Fabius Sanga, the patron of their state. Sanga instantly 
informed Cicero, who directed that they should pretend 
the greatest zeal for the plot, and learn as much of it as 
they could. 

The conspirators had now arranged their plan. On a 
certain day 13estia, who was a tribune, was to harangue the 
people, throwing all the blame of the civil war now on the 
eve of breaking out on Cicero; the following night StatiHus 
and Gabinius with their bands were to fire the city in twelve 
places, while Cethegus should watch at Cicero's doors, others 
at those of other men of rank, to kill them as they came 
out ; the young noblemen were to murder their fathers ; and 
thus, having filled the city with blood and tumult, the whole 
party were to break out and join Catilina. 



CATILINA S CONSPIRACY. 379 

By Cicero's direction the Allobroges required an oath, 
sealed by the principal conspirators, to take home to their 
people. This was readily given them, and one T. Voltur- 
ciiis was directed to go with them and introduce them, on 
the way, to Catilina, to w4iom he was also the bearer of a 
letter from Lentulus. They left Rome by night, and when 
they came to the Mulvian bridge they were assailed by the 
troops which they knew the consul had placed there : they 
gave themselves up at once, as also did Volturcius, seeing 
resistance was in vain, and all were brought back to Rome. 
Cicero, having now sufficient evidence in his hands, sent for 
the principal conspirators and arrested them. He then called 
together the senate ; the letters were read, the Allobroo-es 
gave their evidence ; Volturcius, being promised life and 
liberty, made a full confession; Lentulus and the rest ac- 
knowledged their seals. It was decreed that Lentulus, who 
was prcBtor, should lay down his office, and that he and all 
the rest should be held in free custody. The tide of popular 
feeling turned completely against the conspirators, when it 
was known that they had designed to fire the city, and every 
voice now extolled the consul. 

In a day or two after, one L. Tarquinius was taken on 
his way to Catilina, and, being promised his life, told the 
same story with Volturcius, but added, that he was sent by 
M. Crassus to tell Catilina not to be cast down at the arrest 
of Lentufus and the others, but on the contrary to advance 
with all speed toward the city. The information perhaps 
was true, but such was the power and influence his wealth 
gave Crassus, and so many of the senators were in his debt, 
that it was at once voted false, and Tarquinius vi^as ordered 
to be laid in chains till he should tell at whose insticration he 
acted. Some thought it was a plan of Autronius, that, by 
implicating Crassus, he might save himself and the others ; 
others, that it was done by Cicero to keep Crassus from 
taking up the cause of criminals, as was his wont. Crassus 
himself affected to take this last view of the case. Catulus 
and Piso, it is said, vainly tried to induce the consul to im- 
plicate Cassar ; * yet the opinion of his being concerned was 
so strong, that some of the knights menaced him with their 
swords as he came out of the senate. 

Some days after, (the nones of December,) Cicero, having 

* Sallust, Catil. 49. Perhaps they only wanted him to produce the 
evidence he possessed. 



3S0 HISTORY OF HOME. , 

ascertained that Lentulus and Cethegus were making every 
exertion to induce the slaves and the rabble to rise in their 
favor, again assembled the senate, and put the question what 
should be done with those in custody, as they had already 
declared them guilty of treason. D. Junius Silanus, consul 
elect, being, as was usual, asked the first, voted for capital 
punishment. When the consul put the question to C. Caesar, 
prsBtor elect, he rose, and, in an artful speech, dissuaded 
from severity, and proposed that their properties should be 
confiscated, themselves confined in the municipal towns, and 
that any one who should speak in their favor to the senate 
or people, should be held to have acted against the interests 
of the republic. This speech caused many to waver ; but 
when M. Porcius Cato, one of the tribunes, rose, and dis- 
played the guilt of the conspirators in its true colors, and the 
danger and impolicy of ill-timed clemency, their execution 
was decided on almost unanimously. Cicero, that very day, 
having directed the Capital Triumvirs to have every thing 
ready, himself conducted Lentulus to the prison, where he 
was immediately strangled by the officers, as also were 
Cethegus, Statilius, Gabinius, and Coeparius, When Cicero 
came forth, he said, using a common euphemisqi, " They 
have lived ! " in order to extinguish the hopes of such of 
their confederates as were in the Forum. The populace 
then gave a loose to their joy, and followed him home, 
calling him the savior and founder of the city ; and it being 
now evening, lights were set at the doors throughout all the 
streets, and the women stood on the roofs of the houses to 
gaze on him as he passed. 

Catilina had meantime augmented his forces from two 
thousand men to two legions, of which however only a fourth 
were properly armed. On the approach of Antonius, who 
was sent against him, he fell back into the mountains, 
avoiding an action till he should hear from Rome. He also 
rejected the slaves, who at first were flocking to him in great 
numbers. But when the news of the execution of Lentulus 
and the others came, and he found his forces melting 
away, — as those whose only object had been plunder, 
thinking the case now desperate, were going ofi" every 
day, — he tried to escape into Cisalpine Gaul with those who 
remained. But Q,. Metellus Celer, who commanded in 
Picenum, being informed, by deserters, of his design, came 
and encamped at the foot of the mountains. Catilina, seeing 
escape thus cut off, resolved to give battle at once to Ante- 



FACTIOUS ATTEMPTS AT ROME. 381 

nias. He chose a position between hills on one side, and 
rocks on the other ; and, having placed his best men in 
front, and sent away all the horses, that the danger might be 
equal, he prepared for action. Antonius, being either really 
ill of the gout, or making it a pretext, gave the command to 
his legate M. Petreius. Catilina and his men fought with 
desperation, and were slain to a man ; and the loss on the 
part of the victors was also considerable, (690.) 

The suppression of this conspiracy was doubtless the most 
glorious act of Cicero's life; and, could he have controlled 
his vanity, which was inordinate, and left more to others the 
task of praising it, his fame would perhaps be purer. Pom- 
peius declared more than once in the senate that the safety 
of the state was due to Cicero, and that he had vainly been 
entitled to claim a third triumph if Cicero had not preserved 
a republic for him to triumph in. Crassus said on one 
occasion that he was indebted to Cicero for his beino- now a 
senator, a citizen, free, and alive ; and that whenever he 
looked at his wife, his house, his country, he beheld his 
good deeds. L. Gellius declared in the senate that he de- 
served a civic crown ; and the censor L. Aurelius Cotta 
had a supplication '* decreed him, — an honor never before 
granted to a gowned citizen. Finally, he was styled by Q,. 
Catulus the first of the senate, Father of his Country ; and 
several of the senators, even Cato included, joined in the 
appellation ; and when, on going out of office, he was pre- 
vented by the tribune Q,. Metellus Nepos from haranguing 
the people, as was usual, before he made oath that he had 
kept the laws, he swore aloud that, through him alone, the 
republic and the city had been saved ; and the whole people 
averred that he had sworn the truth. 

But the party who wished the subversion of the state per- 
sisted in their efforts against him. The same Metellus, 
urged on by Caesar, it is said, proposed a bill to recall Pom- 
peius with his army, to end the seditions caused by the 
attempt of Catilina and the tyranny of Cicero. As this was 
evidently directed against the senate, Cato tried at first, in 
that assembly, to soothe Metellus, reminding him of the 
aristocratic feelings always showai by his family; but when 
he found that this only increased his insolence, he changed 

* The supplication or thanksgiving (the probable origin of the Te 
Deum of modern times) was usually given only on occasion of vic- 
tories over foreign enemies in the field. 



382 HISTORY OF ROME. 

his tone, and loudly declared that while he lived Pompeius 
should not bring an army into the city ; and he pointed out 
to the senate the evident danger of the proposed measure. 

When the day of voting came, Metellus filled the Forum 
with strangers, gladiators, and slaves, being resolved to carry 
his bill by force. Cato's family" and friends were under 
great apprehension for him ; but, fixed on doing his duty, 
when one of his colleagues, Q,. Minucius, came and called 
him up in the morning, he rose and set out for the Forum. 
Seeing the temple of Castor occupied by gladiators, while 
Csesar and Metellus sat on the Rostra, he cried, " What a 
bold and timid man, who has raised such a force against one 
unarmed man!" He then advanced to the Rostra, and 
took his seat between the two : numbers of well-disposed 
persons in the crowd cried out to him to be stout, and to 
those about them to stand by him in defence of their free- 
dom. Metellus then ordered the clerk to read out the bill ; 
Cato forbade him. Metellus took it himself, and began to 
read it ; Caio snatched it from him. Metellus then began to 
repeat it from memory; but Minucius put his hand on his 
mouth and stopped it. Metellus then ordered his gladiators 
to act. The people were dispersed ; Cato remained alone ; 
he was assailed with sticks and stones ; but Murena, whom 
he had one time prosecuted, threw his gown over him, and 
brought him into the temple of Castor. Metellus then dis- 
missed his bandits, and was proceeding at his ease to pass 
his law, when the opposite party rallied and drove him and 
his partisans away. Cato came forth and encouraged them, 
and the senate met and passed a decree for the consuls to 
take care of the republic. Metellus, having assembled the 
people, and uttered a tirade against the tyranny of Cato and 
the conspiracy against Pompeius, went off to Asia to boast 
to him of what he had done. The senate deprived both him 
and Caesar of their offices : the latter, at first, disregarded the 
decree, and sat in court as usual ; but, finding that force 
was about to be employed against him, he dismissed his 
lictors and retired to his house; and when, two days after, a 
multitude repaired to him offering to re-instate him by force, 
he declined their services. This conduct, so unexpected, 
was so grateful to the senate, that they sent forthwith to 
thank him, and rescinded tlieir decree.* 

At the close of Caesar's prsetorship, the rites of the Bona 

* Suetonius. Jul. Cres. 16. 



TRIAL OF CLODIUS. 383 

Dea were, according to usage, celebrated by the women in 
his house. At this festival no man was allowed to be 
present; but P. Clodius, the brother-in-law of Lucullus, a 
man of such profligacy of morals that the suspicion of incest 
with his own sisters was so strong against him that Lucullus 
had divorced his wife on account of it, shrank not from 
polluting the mysteries. He was violently enamored of 
Caesar's wife, Pompeia ; and it was arranged between them 
that, to elude the vigilance of her mother-in-law, Aurelia, he 
should come disguised as a woman. He got into the house, 
but while the slave who was the confidant was gone to 
inform her mistress, he went roaming about, and meeting 
one of Aurelia's slaves was discovered by her. She gave 
the alarm ; he was found in his hiding-place, and turned out 
of the house. The affair was soon known to every one. 
The senate consulted the pontiffs, and on their pronouncing 
it to have been impiety, the new consul, M. Pupius Piso, 
(691,) was directed to bring- the matter before the people. 
Piso, himself a man of indifferent character, and the crea- 
ture of Pompeius, worked underhand against it. Clodius 
and his partisans exerted themselves to have a good body of 
the rabble in readiness to disturb the voting. The nobles, 
seeing how it vv'ould be, had the assembly dismissed ; and, 
on the motion of Hortensius, it was resolved that the prEEtor 
and the usual judges, who were to be chosen by lot, should 
try the matter. Money and every other inducement was 
now to be employed on the judges, vvho were mostly embar- 
rassed and profligate men. Crassus, as usual, was most 
liberal ; * and out of fifty-six, thirty-one acquitted Clodius. 
The judges, pretending fear, had asked a guard from the 
senate. " Were you afraid," said Catulus, a few days after, 
to one of them, " that the money would be taken from you ? " 
When Clodius in the senate afterwards said to Cicero, who 
had given evidence against him,f that the judges had not 
given him credit, " Yes," replied he, " twenty-five did ; but 
thirty-one would not give you credit, for they received the 
money beforehand," — so notorious was the manner in which 
the verdict had been obtained. C^sar, when examined on 

* Cicero ad Att. i. 15. 

t Clodius had attempted to prove an alihi, by bringing people to 
swear that he had been at Interamna, sixty miles off, at the time he 
was said to have been in CsBsar's house ; but Cicero, when examined, 
declared that he had been with him at Rome that very morning. 
Clodius never forgave him for not having perjured himself. 



384 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the trial, thouo-h his mother and sister had oriven the fullest 
and most satisfactory evidence, denied that he had found any 
thing wrong. He had however divorced his wife; and on 
being asked why he did so, as he declared her to be inno- 
cent, he replied, " Because I will have those belonging to 
me as free from suspicion as from crime." * A very specious 
sentiment certainly! Caesar however had no doubt of his 
wife's guilt, but he wanted to secure the aid of Clodius, 
whom he knew to be a bold villain, for his future projects, 
and he thought the purchase worth the price. 



CHAPTER Vm.t 

POMPEIUS AND LUCULLUS. — C. JULIUS C^SAR. M. LICINIUS 

CRASSUS. M. PORCIUS CATO. M. TULLIUS CICERO. 

POMPEIUS AT ROME. CONSULATE OF C^SAR. EXILE OF 

CICERO. ROBBERY OF THE KING OF CYPRUS. RECALL 

OF CICERO. HIS CONDUCT AFTER HIS RETURN. 

As Catulus died about this time, the leading men in the 
Roman state were Lucullus, Pompeius, Caesar, Crassus, Cato, 
and Cicero. We will now, therefore, sketch the previous 
history of these persons. The actions of the first two have 
been already related. Pompeius now only aimed at main- 
taining a virtual supremacy in the state: he was no tyrant 
by nature ; but he was vain and covetous of fame, and find- 
ing himself thAvarted and opposed in the senate, he courted 
the favor of the people. Lucullus, after his return from 
Asia, took little share in public aff'airs ; he abandoned him- 
self to luxurious enjoyments to such an excess as to have 
made his name proverbial. His luxury, however, was of a 
far more refined and elecrant nature than was usual, and he 
was a zealous patron and cultivator of literature. He rarely 
visited the senate or Forum, and only when it was necessary 
to oppose the projects of Pompeius, with whom he was justly 
incensed for his treatment of him in Asia. His politics were 
at all times aristocratic. 

* Suetonius, Jul. Cees. 74. 

t Appian, B. C. ii. 8 — 16. Dion, xxxviii. 1 — 30, xxxiz. 6 — 11, 17 — 
23. Plut. Cicero, Cato, Ceesar, and Pompeius. 



C. JULIUS CiESAR. 385 

C. Julius CcBsar, of an ancient patrician family, was neph- 
ew by marriage to Marius, and had married the daughter 
of Cinna, whom, when ordered by Sulla, he refused to di- 
vorce. The dictator refused to allow him to assume the 
dignity of Flamen Dialis, (to which he had been nominated 
by Marius and Cinna;) deprived him of his wife's portion, 
and his gentile rights of inheritance ; and only granted his 
life to the prayers of the Vestals, and of his relations Mam. 
iEmilius and C. Aurelius Cotta, telling them at the same 
time, it is said, that he would one time be the destruction 
of the aristocratic party, for that there were many Marii in 
him. Caesar retired to Asia, and his enemies always as- 
serted that at this time he prostituted himself to Nicomedes, 
king of Bithynia. On the death of Sulla he returned to 
Rome, and prosecuted Cn. Cornelius Dolabella for extortion 
in Greece ; but, failing to convict him, he retired to Rhodes 
to attend the lectures of the rhetorician Molo. On his way 
he was taken by pirates, and while detained by them, waiting 
for his ransom, he used, apparently in jest, to threaten that 
he would yet crucify them ; but when at liberty, he collected 
a fleet, attacked them, and did as he had threatened. 
When he came back to Rome he was chosen by the people 
one of the military tribunes, (682,) and he was active in 
aiding Pompeius and Crassus in restoring their powers to 
the tribunes of the people. His wife Cornelia being now 
dead, he espoused Pompeia the niece of Sulla. He then 
(686)" went as quaestor with Antistius Vetus to Ulterior 
Spain ; but finding no occupation there for his ambitious 
spirit, he obtained leave to return to Rome. He tried to 
excite the Latin colonies who were claiming the civic fran- 
chise, but, finding that the legions destined for Cilicia were 
detained on account of it, he gave up this project. He soon 
after (687) fell under a strong suspicion of being concerned 
with Crassus, Catilina, Piso, and others to murder a part of 
the senate ; Crassus, it is said, was then to be dictator, and 
Csesar his master of the horse. Crassus however lost cour- 
age, and the attempt was not made. Piso being sent to 
Spain, Caesar, it is added, planned a simultaneous rising 
with him ; but the death of Piso prevented its execution. 
Ca3sar was aedile this year, and he entertained the people 
with all kinds of shows at an enormous expense ; and, as a 
means of repairing his fortune, he sought Egypt as his prov- 
ince, where the people of Alexandria had expelled their 
king ; but the nobility opposed, and to spite them he re- 
33 WW 



386 HISTORY OF ROME. 

placed on the Capitol the statues and the Cimbric trophies 
of Marius, which Sulla had removed ; he also caused to be 
prosecuted as murderers those who had received money out 
of the treasury for bringing the heads of the proscribed ; 
and he excited T. Labienus to prosecute C. Rabirius for the 
murder of L. Saturninus, who was put to death by order of 
the senate thirty-seven years before. Q,. Catulus, observing 
these proceedings, exclaimed, "Caesar assails the constitu- 
tion now with engines, not by mines." On the death of the 
chief pontiff Metellus Pius, (688,) Csesar stood for the office 
against Q,. Catulus and P. Servilius Isauricus, two of the 
first men in the state, relying on the power of his money ; 
for he had bribed to such an extent, and was thereby so im- 
mersed in debt, that, when taking leave of his mother on the 
day of election, he said to her, "Mother, you will see' your 
son to-day chief pontiff or an exile." He was elected; hav- 
ing had more votes in his competitors' own tribes than they 
had altogether. He was praetor elect at the time of Cati- 
lina's conspiracy, and we have seen his conduct on that 
occasion and his union with Metellus Nepos. On the ex- 
piration of his office he was appointed propraetor in Spain ; 
but his creditors would not let him go, till Crassus, who 
knew how useful he might be to him, satisfied the most 
urgent, and gave security to the amount of eight hundred 
and thirty talents to the others. 

M. Licinius Crassus was a man of considerable talent 
and eloquence, but of insatiable avarice. In the time of 
Sulla he obtained by gift or purchase at low rates an im- 
mense quantity of the property of the proscribed, and he 
used every means to augment his wealth. He courted the 
people with entertainments ; he lent money to his friends 
without interest, and to others on interest ; and by these 
means had such a number of persons under his influence, 
that he possessed considerable power in the state. His 
eloquence gave him great advantage as an advocate, and be 
usually undertook the defence of those accused of crimes. 
Crassus had not the great talents of Csesar, but his private 
character was much purer. 

M. Porcius Cato, a descendant of the celebrated censor, 
was like him a rigid maintainer of the old Roman man- 
ners. His life was stainless, his morals austere ; but he was 
not totally exempt from the vanity which seemed inherent 
in, his family. Having served as a military tribune in 
Macedonia, and made a tour through Asia, he returned to 



M. TULLIUS CICERO. 387 

Rome, and devoted himself to public affairs. He was first 
appointed to the quaestorship, and (what was, it seems, very 
unusual at the time) before he entered on the duties of his 
office he made himself master of the laws and rules be- 
longing to it. The clerks, who heretofore had done all the 
business as they pleased under the name of the ignorant 
young noblemen who were appointed to the office, now 
found matters quite altered; they attempted to thwart him, 
but he turned some of them out, and soon reduced them to 
order. Jle brought the treasury into a more flourishing state 
than it had been for some time. He made those who had 
received from Sulla the 50,000 sesterces for the murder 
of the proscribed refund, as possessing the public money 
unlawfully ; and they were then prosecuted for the murders 
they had committed. Cato never was absent from a sitting 
of the senate or an assembly of the people ; he was the first 
to enter, the last to leave, the senate-house; in the intervals 
of business he drew his cloak before his face and read, 
having a book always with him. When his friends, in the 
year 6S9, urged him to stand for the tribunate, he declined ^ 
and retired to his estate in Lucania ; but on his road meet- 
ing the train of Metellus Nepos, who was going, with Pom- 
peius' approbation, to sue for the office, he paused, and, 
havinff reflected on the evil Metellus mi^ht do if not vigror- 
ously opposed, he returned, offered himself as a candidate, 
and, being elected, acted as we have seen above. Cicero 
objected to Cato that he did not, like himself, bend to cir- 
cumstances, speaking, as he terms it, as if he were in Plato's 
republic and not in the dregs of Romulus ; and his obser- 
vation is just ; but it is this very thing that gives dignity 
to Cato's character : as for the republic, it was already past 
redemption. 

M. Tullius Cicero was a native of Arpinum in the Vol- 
scian country, where his family had been connected with 
that of Marius. His superior talents early displayed them- 
selves, and were sedulously cultured ; and, though of rather 
a timid character, he ventured to plead the cause of Sex. 
Roscius, who was unjustly prosecuted for parricide by Sulla's 
freedman Chrysogonus and his agents, after they had robbed 
him of his property. Though he succeeded, Sulla testified 
no enmity toward him ; he, however, some time after went 
to Greece for the sake of study, and of hearing the lectures 
of the most distinoruished teachers of rhetoric. After his re- 
turn he was appointed (677) frumentary quaestor for Sicily, 



388 HISTORY OF ROME. 

and in this office he exhibited that spirit of humanity and 
justice which always distinguished him. In 682, when 
Pompeius and Crassus were consuls, Cicero, then sedile 
elect, appeared as the prosecutor of the notorious C. Verres 
for robbery and extortion in Sicily. He was chosen pra3tor 
for the year 6S6. It would appear that, as the haughty 
nobility looked down on him as being a new man, he now 
chiefly sought the favor of the people and of Pompeius ; 
for while in office he strenuously supported the Manilian 
law, which was certainly not a constitutional measure. The 
danger caused by Catilina however drew Cicero and the 
aristocracy closely together ; they raised him to his glori- 
ous consulate, and he ever after continued to be their ablest 
supporter^ 

Pompeius on his return from Asia found his party in the 
senate not so strong as hitherto ; LucuUus and Metellus 
Creticus were both hostile to him, Crassus bore him the old 
grudge, Cicero had somewhat cooled in his ardor. The first 
request which he had made, namely, to have the consular 
elections for 691 deferred till he should arrive to canvass for 
his friend M. Pupius Piso, was refused, Cato opposing it as 
unconstitutional. Piso however was elected ; but he does 
not appear to have quite answered Pompeius' purpose, being 
perhaps impeded by his colleague M. Valerius Messala. At 
the next election (691) Pompeius (Piso being his agent) 
actually bought the consulate for his creature L. Afranius, 
paying the tribes so much apiece for their votes.* Even 
this did not answer, as Afranius was a man of little account, 
and his colleague Q.. Metellus Celer was personally hostile 
to Pompeius for having divorced his sister Mucia. What 
Pompeius chiefly wanted to accomplish was, to get lands 
for his soldiers, and to have all his acts in Asia confirmed 
in the mass by the senate ; but Lucullus and his party in- 
sisted, with reason, that they should be gone through sep- 
arately, and confirmed or not according to their merits. At 
Pompeius' desire the tribune L. Flavius moved an agrarian 
Jaw, and to gain the people they were joined in it with the 
soldiers, Cicero, proposing amendments for the security of 
private property, and for the purchase of the lands to be 
divided out of the new revenues of the state, gave the bill his 
support ; for he^ wished to oblige Pompeius, and he expected 
that it would help to remove the rabble from the city.t But 

* Cicero ad Att. i. IG. Plut. Pomp. 44. t Cic. ad Att. i. 19. 



CONSULATE OF CiESAR. 389 

the senate was strongly opposed to it ; the tribune on his 
side was violent; he cast the consul Metellus into prison, 
and, when Metellus summoned the senate thither, Flavins 
placed his official seat in the door and told them they must 
make their way through the wall. Pompeius however, 
through shame and fear of disgusting the people, ordered him 
to rise and leave the passage free. The bill appears to have 
been then given up. • 

Caesar, who, by expeditions against the Lusitanians, had, 
as he considered, gotten sufficient materials for a triumph, 
and was anxious to obtain the consulate, hastened home 
when the tiene of the elections was at hand, (692.) As there 
was no room for delay, he applied to the senate for permis- 
sion to enter the city before his triumph in order to canvass 
the people; but Cato and his friends opposing it, it was re- 
fused. Caesar, who was not a man to sacrifice the substance 
for the show, gave up the triumph; and, entering the city, 
formed a coalition with L. Lucceius, a man of wealth who 
was also a candidate, of which the terms were that Luc- 
ceius should distribute money in his own and Caesar's name 
conjointly, and Caesar in like manner give him a share in 
his influence. The nobles, when they saw this coalition, 
resolved to give all their interest to M. Calpurnius Bibulus, 
the other candidate, and, with even Cato's consent, author- 
ized him to offer as high as Lucceius, engaging to raise 
the money among them. Bibulus therefore was elected 
with Caesar, whose daring projects the senate thus hoped 
to restrain. 

Caesar, who well knew the character of Pompeius, re- 
solved to make him and Crassus the ladder of his ambition. 
He represented to them how absurd their jealousy and en- 
mity was, which only gave importance to such people as 
Cato and Cicero ; whereas if they three were united they 
might command the state. They saw the truth of what 
he said, and each, blinded by his vanity and ambition, ex- 
pecting to derive the greatest advantage from it, agreed to 
the coalition ; and thus was formed a Triumvirate, bound by 
a secret pledge that nothing displeasing to any one of them 
should ^e allowed to pass. 

Caesar, as soon as he entered on his office, (693,) introduced 
an agrarian law for dividing all the public land (except in 
Campania) among Pompeius' soldiers and the poorer citi- 
zens; purchasing it however from the present possessors, 
and appointing twenty commissioners to carry the law into 
33* 



390 ' HISTORY OF ROME. 

effect, among whom were to be Pompeius and Crassus. This 
law, to which they could make no objection, was highly dis- 
pleasing to the adverse party in the senate, who suspected 
Caesar's ulterior designs, and Cato declared strongly against 
any change. Caesar menaced to drag him off to prison; he 
professed himself ready to go that instant, and several rose 
to follow him. Csesar then grew ashamed and desisted, 
but he dismissed the senate, telling them he would bring 
the matter at once before the people ; and he called the 
senate together no longer during his consulate. 

He then laid his bill before the people, to which he had 
added a clause for dividing the lands of CampEWiia, in lots 
of ten jugers, among twenty thousand poor citizens with 
three or more children ; * and, being desirous to have some 
of the principal persons to express their approbation of it, he 
first addressed his colleague, but Bibulus declared himself 
adverse to innovation ; he then affected to entreat him, ask- 
ing the people to join with him, as if Bibulus wished they 
might have it ; " Then," cried Bibulus, " you shall not 
have it this year even if you all will it," and went away. 
Csesar, expecting a similar refusal from the other magis- 
trates, made no application to them, but bringing forward 
Pompeius and Crassus desired them to say what they 
thought of the law. Pompeius then spoke highly in favor 
of it, and on Caesar and the people asking him if he would 
support them against those who opposed it, he cried, elate 
with this proof of his importance, " If any man dares to 
draw a sword, T will raise a buckler ! " Crassus also ex- 
pressed his approbation, and as the coalition was a secret, 
the example of these two leading men induced many others 
to give their consent and support to the law. Bibulus how- 
ever was still firm, and he was supported by three of the 
tribunes; and^ as a means of impeding the law, he declared 
all the remaining days of the year nefasti, or holydays. 
When Csesar, regardless of his proclamations, fixed a day 
for passing the law, Bibulus and his friends came to the 
temple of Castor, whence he was haranguing the people, 
and attempted to oppose him ; but he was pushed down, a 
basket of dung was flung upon him, his lictors' fasces were 
broken, his friends (among whom were Cato and the trib- 

* Cicero (ad Alt. ii. 16) highly disapproved of this. He however 
expected that, as the land would yield but 5000 lots, the people would 
be discontented. 



CONSULATE OF CJESAR. 391 

unes) were beaten and wounded, and so the law was 
passed. Bibulus henceforth did not quit his house, whence 
he continually issued edicts declaring all that was done on 
the nefast days to be unlawful. The tribune P. Vatinius, 
one of Caesar's creatures, even attempted to drag him to 
prison, but he was opposed by his colleagues. 

The senate "were required to swear to this law, as for- 
merly to that of Saturninus. Metellus, Cato, and Cato's 
imitator Favonius at first declared loudly that they would 
not do so ; but having the fate of Numidicus before their 
eyes, and knowing the inutility of opposition, they yielded 
to the remonstrances of their friends. 

Having thus gained the people, Caesar proceeded to se- 
cure the knights, and here Cato's Utopian policy aided him. 
This most influential body thinking, or pretending, that they 
had taken the tolls at too high a rate, had applied to the 
senate for a reduction, but Cato insisted on keeping them 
to their bargain. Caesar, without heeding him or the senate, 
reduced them at once a third, and thus this self-interested 
body was detached from the party of the aristocracy, and all 
Cicero's work undone. Caesar now found himself strong 
enough to keep his promise to Pompeius, all whose acts in 
Asia were confirmed by the people.* 

The triumvirate, or rather Caesar, was extremely anxious 
to gain Cicero over to their side, on account of the influ- 
ence which he possessed. But, though he had a great per- 
sonal regard for Pompeius, he rejected all their overtures. 
Caesar then resolved to make him feel his resentment, and 
the best mode seemed to be to let Clodius loose at him. 
This profligate had long been trying to become a tribune of 
the people, but for that purpose it was necessary he should 
be a plebeian, which could only be effected by adoption. 
His first efforts were unavailing; but when Cicero, in defend- 
ing his former colleague Antonius, took occasion to make 
some reflections on the present condition of the common- 
wealth, Caesar, to punish him, had the law for Clodius' adop- 
tion passed at once, Pompeius degrading himself by acting 
as augur on this occasion, in which all the laws and rules 
on the subject were violated. t 

* It was probably on this occasion that Csssar so terrified Lucullus 
by false accusations that be threw himself at his feet. Suet. Jul. 
Caes. 20. 

t To make an adoption legal, it was necessary that the adopter 
should be older than the adopted, have no children, and be incapable 



392 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Some time after, one Vettius, who had been one of Cice- 
ro's informers in the affair of Catilina, being suborned, it 
is said, by Cassar, declared that several young noblemen had 
entered into a plot, in which he partook, to murder Pom- 
peius ; and he named L. ^milius Paulas, who was then 
actually pro-quaestor in Macedonia, as the head of it. The 
senate ordered him to prison ; next day Caesar produced him 
on the Rostra, when he omitted some whom he had named 
to the senate, and added others, among whom were Lu- 
cullus and Cicero's son-in-law Piso, and hinted at Cicero 
himself. Vettius was taken back to prison, where he was 
privately murdered by his accomplices, as Caesar said,* — by 
Ceesar himself, accordinor to others.! 

The senate, to render Caesar as innoxious as possible, had, 
in right of the Sempronian law, assigned the woods and 
roads as the provinces of the consuls on the expiration of 
their office. But Caesar had no idea of being foiled thus ; 
and his creature, the tribune Vatinius, had a law passed by 
the people, giving him the province of Cisalpine Gaul and 
Illyricum, with three legions, for five years ; and when, on 
the death of Metellus Celer, he expressed a wish to have 
Transalpine Gaul added, the senate, as he would otherwise 
have applied to the people, granted it to him with another 
legion. In order to draw the ties more closely between 
himself and Pompeius, he gave him in marriage his lovely 
and amiable daughter Julia, and he himself married the 
daughter of L. Calpurnius Piso, whom, with A. Gabinius, a 
creature of Pompeius, the triumvirs had destined for the 
consulate of the following year. They also secured the 
tribunate for Clodius; and thus terminated the memorable 
consulate of Caesar and Bibulus. 

Clodius lost no time (694) in preparing for his attack on 
Cicero. He first secured the consuls, who were distressed 
and profligate men, by engaging to get Macedonia and 
Achaia for Piso as his province, and Syria for Gabinius. 
Then, to win the people, he proposed a law for distributing 
corn to them gratis ; by another law he reestablished the 

of having any, and that there should be no collusion in the affair ; all 
of which should be proved before a college of the priests. Now Fon- 
teius, who adopted Clodius, was not twenty, while his adopted son was 
thirty-five : he had moreover a wife and children, and the priests were 
never consulted. How this transaction must make one hate Csesar, 
and despise Pompeius ! 

* Appian, B. C. ii. 12. t Suet. Jul. Caes. 20. 



EXILE OF CICERO. 393 

clubs and unions,* which the senate had suppressed, and 
formed new ones out of the dregs of the people and even of 
the slaves ; by a third law he prohibited any one from watch- 
ing the heavens on assembly days;t and by a fourth he 
forbade the censors to note any senator unless he was openly 
accused before them, and that they both agreed. Having 
thus, as he thought, secured the favor of the consuls and the 
people, and having a sufficient number of ruffians from the 
clubs and unions at his devotion, he proposed a bill inter- 
dicting from fire and water any person who, without sentence 
of the people, had or should put any citizen to death. Cicero, 
who, though he was not named, knew that he was aimed 
at, was so foolish and cowardly as to change his raiment, 
(a thing he afterwards justly regretted,) and go about sup- 
plicating the people according to custom, as if he were 
actually accused; but Clodius and his ruffians met him, 
in all the streets, threw dirt and stones at him, and im- 
peded his supplications : the knights, the young men, and 
numbers of others, with young Crassus at their head, 
changed their habits with him and protected him. They 
assembled on the Capitol, and sent some of the most 
respectable of their body on his behalf to the consuls and 
the senate, who were in the temple of Concord ; t)ut Gabin- 
ius would not let them come near the senate, and Clodius 
had them beaten by his ruffians. On the proposal of the 
tribune L. Ninius, the senate decreed that they should 
change their raiment as in a public calamity ; but Gabinius 
forbade it, and Clodius was at hand with his cut-throats, so 
that many of them tore their clothes, and rushed out of 
the temple with loud cries. Pompeius had told Cicero not 
to fear, and repeatedly promised him his aid ; and Csesar, 
whose design was only to humble him, had offered to appoint 
him his legate, to give him an excuse for absenting himself 
from the city ; but Cicero, suspecting his object in so doing, 
and thinking it derogatory to him, had refused it. He now 
found that Pompeius had been deceiving him, for he kept 

* The sodalitdtes were, properly speaking, guilds or companies of 
trades, and as such they had religious festivals, a common purse, of- 
ficers, &c. As their members were of a very low rank in society, 
trade being in no repute at Rome, and as we find them mere tools of 
demagogues in their political capacity, we think the terms in the text 
will give the reader of the present day a more correct idea of them 
than the more dignified ones of guilds and companies. 

t Because thunder, &c. would cause the assembly to be put off, and 
by this means bad measures, and good ones too, had often been stopped. 

X X 



394 HISTORY OF ROME. 

out of the way lest he should be called on to perform his 
promises. Sooner, as he says, than be the cause of civil 
tumult and bloodshed, he retired by night from the city 
which, but five years before, he had saved from the asso- 
ciates of those v/ho now expelled him. Csesar, who had 
remained in the suburbs waiting for the effect of Clodius' 
measures, then set out for his province. When Clodius 
found that Cicero was gone, he had a bill passed interdicting 
him from fire and water, and outlawing any person living 
within four hundred miles of Italy who should entertain him. 
He burned and destroyed his different villas and his house 
on the Palatine, on the site of which he built a temple to 
Liberty ! His goods were put up to auction ; but, as no one 
would bid for them, the consuls took possession of them for 
themselves. 

Cicero, it is much to be lamented, bore his exile with far 
less equanimity than could have been wished for by the ad- 
mirers of his really noble character ; his extant letters are 
filled with the most unmanly complaints, and he justly drew 
on himself the derision of his enemies. But his was not 
one of those characters which, based on the high conscious- 
ness of worth, derive all their support and consolation from 
within ; it could only unfold its bloom and display its 
strength beneath the fostering sun of public favor and ap- 
plause, and Cicero was great nowhere but at Rome. It was 
his first intention to go to Sicily, but the prsetor of that island, 
C. Virgilius, who had been his intimate friend, wrote desiring 
him not to enter it. He then passed over to Greece, where 
he was received with the most distinguished honors, and 
finally fixed his residence in Macedonia, where the quaestor 
Cn. Plancius showed him every attention. 

Having driven Cicero away, Clodius next proceeded to 
remove Cato, that he might not be on the spot to impede 
his measures. And he proposed at the same time to gratify 
an old grudge against the king of Cyprus, the brother of 
the king of Egypt , for when Clodius was in Asia he chanced 
to be taken by the pirates, and, having no money, he ap- 
plied to the king of Cyprus, on whom he certainly had no 
claim. The king, who was a miser, sent him only two 
talents, and the pirates sent the paltry sum back, and set 
Clodius at liberty without ransom. Clodius kept this con- 
duct in his mind ; and, just as he entered on his tribunate, 
the Cypriotes happening to send to Rome to complain of 
their king, he had a bill passed to reduce Cyprus to the 



ROBBERY OF THE KING OB^ CYPRUS. 395 

form of a province, and to sell the king's priv.ate property ; 
he added in the bill, that this province should be committed 
to Cato as quaestor, with praetorian power, who (to keep 
him the longer away from Rome) was also directed to go 
to Byzantium, and restore the exiles who had been driven 
thence for their crimes. Cato, we are assured, undertook 
this most iniquitous commission against his will ; * he exe- 
cuted it, however, most punctually. He went to Rhodes, 
whence he sent one of his friends named M. Canidius to 
Cyprus, to desire the king to resign quietly, offering him the 
priesthood of the Paphian goddess. Ptolemaeus however 
preferred death to degradation, and he took poison. Cato 
then, not trusting Canidius, sent his nephew, M. Junius 
Brutus, to look after the property, and went himself to By- 
zantium, where he effected his object without any difficulty. 
He then proceeded to Cyprus to sell the late king's prop- 
erty ; and, being resolved to make this a model-sale, he 
attended the auction constantly himself, saw that every 
article was sold to the best advantage, and even offended 
his friends by not allowing them to get bargains. He thus 
got together a sum of 7000 talents, which he made up in 
vessels containing 2 talents 500 drachmas each, to which 
he attached a cord and cork, that they might float in case 
of shipwreck. He also had two separate accounts of the 
sale drawn out, one of which he kept, and the other he 
committed to one of his freedmen ; but both happened to be 
lost, and he had not the gratification of proving his ability 
of making the most of a property. 

When the news that Cato had entered the Tiber with the 
money reached Rome, priests and magistrates, senate and 
people, poured out to receive him ; but, though the consuls 
and praetors were among them, Cato would not quit his 
charge till he had brought his vessel up to the quay. The 
people were amazed at the quantity of the wealth, and the 
senate voted a prgetorship to Cato, though he was under 
the legal age, and permission to appear at the games in a 
prcBtexta, of which however he took no advantage. No 
one thought of the iniquity of the whole proceeding ; and 
when Cicero, after his return, wished to annul all the acts 
of Clodius' tribunate, Cato opposed him, and this caused a 
coolness between them for some time. 

* A Roman was not at liberty to refuse a charge committed to him 
■1)7 the state. 



396 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Cicero had been gone but two months when his friend 
Ninius the tribune, supported by seven of his colleagues, 
made a motion in the senate for his recall. The whole 
house agreed to it, but one of the other tribunes interposed. 
Pompeius himself was, however, now disposed to join in 
restoring him, for Clodius' insolence was gone past his en- 
durance. This ruffian had by stratagem got into his hands 
the young Tigranes, whom Pompeius had given in charge to 
the praetor L. Flavins. He had promised him his liberty for 
a large sum of money ; and when Pompeius demanded him, 
he put him on board a shff) bound for Asia. A storm having 
driven the vessel into Antium, Flavins went with an armed 
force to seize the prince, but Clodius met him on the Ap- 
pian Road, and, after an engagement in which several were 
slain on both sides, drove him off.* While Pompeius was 
brooding over this insult, one of Clodius' slaves was seized 
at the door of the senate-house with a dasfo-er, which he 
said his master had given him that he might kill Pompeius; 
Clodius' mob also made frequent attacks on him, so that out 
of real or pretended fear he resolved to keep his house till 
the end of the year ; indeed he had been actually pursued 
to and besieged in it one day by a mob, headed by Clodius' 
freedman Damio, and the consul Gabinius had to fight in his 
defence.t Pompeius therefore now resolved to befriend 
Cicero ; and P. Sextius, one of the tribunes elect, took a 
journey into Gaul to obtain Caesar's consent. About the 
end of October the eight tribunes again proposed a law for 
his recall, and P. Lentulus Spinther, the consul elect, spoke 
strongly in favor of it. Lentulus' colleague, Q,. Metellus 
Nepos, though he had been Cicero's enemy, seeing- how 
Caesar and Pompeius were inclined, promised his aid, as 
also did all the tribunes elect : Clodius, however, soon man- 
aged to purchase two of them. 

On the 1st of January (695) Lentulus moved the senate 
for Cicero's recall. L. Cotta said, that, as he had been ex- 
pelled without law, he did not require a law for his restora- 
tion. Pompeius agreed, but said that for Cicero's sake it 
would be better if the people had a share in restoring him. 
The senate were unanimously of this opinion, but the trib- 
une Sex. Serranus interposed. The senate then appointed 
the 22d for laying the matter before the people. When 
that day came, the tribune Q,. Fabricius set out before it was 

* Asconius on Cic. for Milo. t Id. ut supra 



RECALL OF CICERO. 397 

light with a party to occupy the Rostra ; but Clodius had 
already taken possession of the Forum with his own gladia- 
tors, and a band he had borrowed from his brother Appius, 
and his ordinary troop of ruffians.* Fabricius' party was 
driven off with the loss of several lives. Another tribune, 
M. Cispius, was treated in a similar manner. Q,. Cicero 
only saved himself by getting under the bodies of his slaves 
and freedmen who were slain about him in the Comitium ; 
the tribune Sextius was left for dead in the temple of Castor. 
The Tiber and the sewers were filled with dead bodies, and 
the Forum was covered with blood as in the time of the 
contest of Cinna and Octavius. Clodius, elate with his vic- 
tory, then burned the temple of the Nymphs, where the 
books of the censors were kept ; he attacked the houses 
of the praetor L. CaBcilius and the tribune T. Annius Milo. 
The latter impeached Clodius, de vi, but his brother Appius 
the praetor, and the consul Metellus, screened him, and 
meantime aided his suit for the aedileship, which would pro- 
tect him for another year. Milo then, to repel force by 
force, also purchased a band of gladiators, and daily conflicts 
occurred in the streets. 

The senate, resolved not to be thus bullied, directed the 
magistrates to summon well-affected voters from all parts of 
Italy. They came in great numbers from every town and 
district. Pompeius, who was then at Capua, exerted him- 
self greatly in the affkir. Encouraged by their presence the 
senate passed a decree in proper form for Cicero's restora- 
tion ; but Clodius still was able to prevent its ratification by 
the people. The senate then met on the Capitol, (May 25 ;) 
Pompeius spoke highly in praise of Cicero; others followed 
him ; Metellus, who had been playing a double part all 
through, ceased to oppose, and a decree was passed, Clodius 
alone dissenting. The senate met again the next day ; and 
Pompeius and the other leading men, having previously 
addressed the people, and told them all that had been said, 
the law was made ready to be laid before the centuries; yet, 
strange to say ! Clodius, though deserted by all, was still 
able to cause a delay of two months. At length (Aug. 4) 
the centuries met on the Field of Mars, and, by a unanimous 
vote, Cicero was recalled. 

* These are always called the opercR, (operatives.) They were the 
common workmen of the city, members of the unions, (sodalitdtcs, see 
p. 393.) freedmen, slaves, &,c. 

34 



398 HISTORY OF ROME. 

»That very day Cicero sailed from Dyrrhachium and landed 
at Brundisium ; the people poured out from every town and 
village as he passed to congratulate him, and all ranks and 
orders at Rome received him at the Capene gate. Next day 
he returned thanks to the senate and people ; and to prove 
his gratitude to Pompeius, he vt^as the proposer of a law, 
giving him the superintendence of the corn trade for a term 
of five years,'* and Pompeius in return made him his first 
legate. The senate decreed that Cicero's house and villas 
should be rebuilt at the public expense. Cicero then as- 
serted that, as Clodius had become a plebeian in an illegal 
manner, all the acts of his tribunate were equally so, and 
should be annulled. But here he. was opposed by Cato, 
whose vanity took alarm, and who feared lest he should lose 
the fame of the ability with which he had conducted the 
robbery of the king of Cyprus ; and this produced a coolness 
between him and Cicero, who also was disgusted, and with 
reason, with the conduct of several of the other leaders of 
the aristocratic party, at which we need not be surprised 
when we find them, purely to annoy Pompeius, aiding Clo- 
dius so eifectually that he was chosen sdile without opposi- 
tion. This pest of Rome immediately accused Milo of the 
very crime (f/e vi) of which he had been accused himself 
Pompeius appeared and spoke for Milo, and it came to a 
regular engagement between their respective partisans, in 
which the Clodians were worsted and driven off the Forum. 
Pompeius saw that Crassus was at the bottom of all the 
insults offered him, and that Bibulus, Curio, and others of 
the nobles were anxious to destroy his influence, and Cicero 
agreed to join him and repel force by force if needful. 

Cicero at this time abstained as much as he could from 
public affairs, attending entirely to the bar. To understand 
his conduct we must keep his known character in view, in 
which vanity and timidity were prominent ; but he was also 
grateful, placable, and humane. He had all his life had a 
strong personal affection for Pompeius, and he was now full 
of admiration for the exploits of Csesar in Gaul, while he was 
disgusted with the paltry conduct of the leading aristocrats. 
Hence we find him, at the request of Cossar or Pompeius, 
employing his eloquence in the defence of even his personal 

* On the motion of the tribune C Messius it was added that Pom- 
peius should have as extensive powers as were committed to him in 
the Piratic war. 



SECOND CONSULATE OF POMPEIUS AND CRASSUS. 399 

enemies, and doing things for which we sometimes must, 
pity, sometimes despise him. It is pleasing, however, to 
behold the triumph of his eloquence in the defence of his 
friend Sextius, whom the Clodians had the audacity to prose- 
cute de vi, for not having died, we may suppose, of his 
wounds.* Cicero also carried a motion in the senate that, 
as there was not money in the treasury to purchase the 
Campanian lands, which by Caesar's law were to be divided, 
the act itself should be reconsidered. Finding, however, 
that this was highly displeasing to Caesar and Pompeius, and 
that those who applauded him for it did it because they ex- 
pected it would produce a breach between the latter and 
him, he thought it best to consult his interest, and therefore 
dropped it. 



CHAPTER IX.t 

SECOND CONSULATE OF POMPEIUS AND CRASSUS. PARTHIAN" 

WAR OF CRASSUS. HIS DEFEAT AND DEATH. ANARCHY 

AT ROME. DEATH OF CLODIUS. POMPEIUS SOLE CONSUL. 

TRIAL AND EXILE OF MILO. GALLIC WARS OF C^SAR. 

It was Caesar's custom to return after his summer cam- 
paigns in Gaul to pass the winter in his Cisalpine province, 
in order to keep up his intercourse with Rome. He came 
in the present winter (696) to Luca, (Lucca,) on the verge 
of his province, whither Pompeius, Crassus, and such a 
number of the Roman magistrates repaired, that one hun- 
dred and twenty lictors have been seen at a time at his gates. 
It was here privately agreed by the triumvirate that Pom- 
peius and Crassus should stand for the consulate, and that, 
if successful, they should obtain a renewal of Caesar's govern- 
ment for five years longer. As the present consuls, Cn. 
Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, and L. Marcius Philippus, 
were adverse to the triumvirate, the tribune C. Cato was 

* Like ScsBvola, see above, p. 344, note. 

t Appian B. C. ii. 17 — 25. Dion, xxxviii. 31, to the end; xxxix. 1 
— 5, 24 — 54 ; xl. 1 — 57. Csesar, Gallic Wars. Plut., Pompeius, Cras- 
sus, and Caesar. 



400 HISTORY OF ROME. 

directed to impede all elections for the rest of the year ; and, 
in consequence of his opposition, the consular elections were 
held by an interrex in the beginning of the next year, (697.) 
Pompeius and Crassus were chosen without opposition, for 
M. Cato's brother-in-law, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who 
alone ventured to stand, was, we are told,* attacked by their 
party as he was going out before day to solicit votes : the 
slave who carried the torch before him was killed ; others 
were wounded, as was Cato himself; Domitius fled home, 
and gave up his canvass. Cato then stood for the praetor- 
ship ; the consuls, aware of the trouble he would give them 
if elected, made every effort to prevent him. They bribed 
extensively for his opponent P. Vatinius, and procured a 
decree of the senate that the prgetors should enter on their 
office at once, instead of remaining private men for sixty 
days, as was the usual course. The first century, however, 
when the election came, voted for Cato. Pompeius, who 
presided, pretended that he heard thunder, and put off the 
election ; and the consuls took care to have Vatinius chosen 
on the following one. The tribune C. Trebonius then by 
their directions proposed a bill, giving them when out of 
office the provinces of Syria and the Spains for five years, 
with authority to raise what troops they pleased ; this law, 
though strongly opposed in the senate, was carried, and 
then Pompeius proposed and carried the one he had prom- 
ised Cgesar. 

The consuls having drawn lots for their provinces, Syria, 
as he coveted, fell to Crassus ; and Pompeius was equally 
well pleased to have the Spains, which, as being at hand, he 
could govern by his lieutenants, while he himself, under 
pretext of his office of inspector of the corn-market, might 
remain at Rome and enjoy the domestic happiness in which 
he so much delighted. The triumvirs not thinkins^ it neces- 
sary to mterfere, L. Domitius and Ap. Claudius were elected 
consuls, and Cato one of the praetors, for the following year, 
(698.) 

Crassus, though nothing was said in the law about the 
Parthians, made little secret of his design to make war on 
them ; and Caesar, it is said, wrote encouraging him to it. 
Many, however, were or affected to be shocked at the injus- 
tice of making war on a people who had given no just cause, 
and the tribune C. Ateius Capito was resolved to prevent his 

* Plut. Cato, 41. 



PARTHIAN WAR OF CRASSUS. 40) 

departure. Crassus begged of Pompeius to see him out of 
the city, as he knew he should be opposed, Pompeius com- 
plied with his request, and the people made way in silence ; 
but xlteius meeting them, called to Crassus to stop, and when 
lie did not heed him, sent a beadle to seize him ; the other 
tribunes however interposed. Ateius then ran on to the 
gate, and kindling a fire on a portable altar, poured wine 
and incense on it, and pronounced direful curses on Crassus, 
invoking strange and terrible deities. 

Heedless of the tribune's imprecations, Crassus proceeded 
to Brundisium and embarked, though the sea was rough and 
stormy. He reached Epirus with the loss of several of his 
ships, and thence took the usual route over land to Syria. 
He immediately crossed the Euphrates, and began to ravage 
Mesopotamia. Several of the Greek towns there cheerfully 
submitted; but instead of pushing on, Crassus returned to 
Syria to winter, thus giving the Parthians time to collect 
their forces. He spent the winter busily engaged in amass- 
ing treasures : to a Parthian embassy which came to com- 
plain of his acts of aggression he made a boastful reply, 
saying that he would give an answer in Seleucia ; the eldest 
of the envoys laughed, and showing the palm of his hand 
said, " Crassus' hairs will grow there before you see Se- 
leucia." 

The Roman soldiers, when they heard of the numbers of 
the Parthians, and their mode of fighting, were dispirited ; 
the soothsayers announced evil signs in the victims ; C. 
Cassius, the quaestor, and his other officers advised Crassus 
to pause, but in vain. To as little effect did the Armenian 
prince Artabazes, who came with six thousand horse and 
promised many more, counsel him to march through Arme- 
nia, which was a hilly country and adverse to cavalry, in 
which the Parthian strength lay : he replied that he would 
go through Mesopotamia, where he had left many brave 
Romans in garrison. The Armenian then retired, and 
Crassus passed the river at Zeugma, (699 ;) thunder roared, 
lightning flashed, and other ominous signs, it is said, ap- 
peared ; but they did not stop him. He jiiarched along its 
left bank, his army consisting of seven legions, with nearly 
one thousand horse, and an equal number of light troops. 

As no enemy appeared, Cassius advised to keep along the 
river till they reached Seleucia ; but an Arab emir, named 
Agbar, (Akbar, i. e. Great,) who had been on friendly terms 
with the Romans when Pompeius was there, now came and 

34* YY 



402 HISTORY OF ROME. 

joined Crassus, and assuring him that the Parthians Avere 
collecting their most valuable property with the intention of 
flying to Hyrcania and Scythia, urged him to push on with- 
out delay. But all he said was false ; he was come to lead 
the Romans to their ruin : the Parthian king Orodes had 
himself invaded Armenia, and his general, Surena, was at 
hand with a large army. Crassus, however, gave credit to 
the Arab ; he left the river and entered on the extensive plain 
of Mesopotamia. Cassius gave over his remonstrances : the 
Arab led them on, and when he had brought them to the 
place arranged with the Parthians, he rode off, assuring 
Crassus that it was for his advantage. That very day a 
party of horse, sent to reconnoitre, fell in with the enemy 
and were nearly all killed. This intelligence perplexed 
Crassus, but he resolved to proceed ; he drew up his infantry 
in a square, with the horse on the flanks, and moved on. 
They reached a stream, where his officers wished him to halt 
for the night, and try to gain further intelligence ; but he 
would go on, and at length they came in sight of the enemy. 
Surena, however, kept the greater part of his troops out of 
view, and those who appeared had their armor covered to 
deceive the Romans. At a signal the Parthians began to 
beat their numerous kettledrums ; and when they thought 
this unusual sound had thrilled the hearts of the Romans, 
they flung off" their coverings, and appeared glittering in 
helms and corselets of steel, and pouring round the solid 
mass of the Romans, showered their arrows on them, numer- 
ous camels being at hand laden with arrows to supply them. 
The light troops vainly essayed to drive them off; Crassus 
then desired his son to charge with his horse and light troops. 
The Parthians, feigning flight, drew them on, and when tliey 
were at a sufficient distance from the main army, they turned 
and assailed them, riding round and round so as to raise such 
a dust that the Romans could not see to defend themselves. 
When numbers had been slain, P. Crassus broke through 
with a part of the horse and reached an eminence, but the 
persevering foe gave them no rest. Two Greeks of that 
country proposed to P. Crassus to escape with them in the 
night, but he generously refused to quit his comrades. Be- 
ing wounded, he made his shield-bearer kill him ; the Par- 
thians slew all that were with him but five hundred, and 
cutting oflf his head set it on a spear. 

Crassus was advancing to the relief of his son when the 
rolling of the Parthians' drums was heard, and they came 



DEFEAT OF CRASSUS. 403 

exhibiting the head of his son. The spirits of the Romans 
were now quite depressed ; Crassus vainly tried to rouse them, 
crying that the loss was his not theirs, and urging them 
to renewed exertions. The Parthians after harassing them 
through the day retired for the night. Cassius and the le- 
gate Octavius, having vainly tried to rouse their general, who 
was now sunk in despair, called a council of the officers, 
and it was resolved to attempt a retreat that night. The 
wailing of the sick and wounded who were left behind in- 
formed the Parthians, but it not being their custom to fight 
at night they remained quiet till morning. They then took 
the deserted camp and slaughtered four thousand men whom 
they found in it, and pursuing after the army cut off the 
stragglers. The Romans reached the town of Carrhge, in 
which they had a garrison. Surena, to keep them from re- 
treat, made feigned proposals of peace ; but finding that he 
was only deceiving them, they set out in the night under the 
guidance of a Greek : their guide however proved treacher- 
ous, and led them into a place full of marshes and ditches. 
Cassius, who suspected him, turned back and made his es- 
cape with five hundred horse ; Octavius with five thousand 
men, having had faithful guides, reached a secure position 
among the hills, and he brought off Crassus, who was assailed 
in the marshes by the Parthians. Surena, fearing lest they 
should get off in the night, let go some of his prisoners, in 
whose hearing he had caused to be said that the king did not 
wish to carry things to extremities ; and he himself and his 
officers rode to the hill with unbent bows, and holding out 
his hand he called on Crassus to come down and meet him. 
The soldiers were overjoyed, but Crassus put no faith in him; 
at length when his men, having urged and pressed, began to 
abuse and threaten him, he took his officers to witness of 
the force that was put on him, and went down accompanied 
by Octavius and some of his other officers. The Parthians 
at first affected to receive him with respect, and a horse was 
brought for him to mount ; but they soon contrived to pick 
a quarrel, and killed him and all who were with him. The 
head and right hand of Crassus were cut off; quarter was 
then offered to the troops, and most of them surrendered. 
The loss of the Romans in this unjust and ill-fated expedi- 
tion was 20,000 slain and 10,000 captured. The Parthians, 
it is said, poured molten gold down the throat of Crassus, in 
reproach of his insatiable avarice. They afterwards made 
irruptions into Syria, which Cassius gallantly defended 
against them. 



404 HISTORY OF ROME. 

When the news of Crassus' defeat and death reached 
Rome, the concern felt for the loss of the army was consid- 
erable, that of himself was thought nothing of; yet this was 
in reality the greater loss of the two, for he alone had the 
power to keep Caesar and Pompeius at unity, as Julia, whom 
they both agreed in loving as she deserved, and who was a 
bond of union between them, had lately died in childbirth, 
to the grief not merely of her father and husband, but of the 
whole Roman people. 

Affairs at Rome were now indeed in a state of perfect an- 
archy ; violence and bribery were the only modes of obtain- 
ing office. In 698, all the candidates for the consulate were 
prosecuted for bribery ; and C. Memmius, one of them, ac- 
tually read in the senate a written agreement between him- 
self and a fellow-candidate Cn. Domitius Calvinus on one 
part, and the consuls L. Domitius and Ap. Claudius on the 
other, by which the two former bound themselves, if elected 
through the consuls' influence, to pay them each 40,000 
sesterces unless they produced three augurs to declare that 
they were present when the curiate law was passed, and two 
consulars to aver that they were present when the consular 
provinces were arranged, which would give the ex-consuls 
the provinces they desired, — all utterly false.* By these 
and other delays the elections were kept off for seven months, 
Pompeius looking quietly on in hopes that they would be 
obliged to create him dictator. Many spoke of it as the 
only remedy ; and though they did not name, they described 
him very exactly as the fittest person ; but Sulla had made 
the name of dictator too odious : others talked of consular 
military tribunes. Cn. Domitius Calvinus and M. Valerius 
Messala were, however, chosen consuls at the end of the 
seven months, (699.) 

The next year (700) T. Annius Milo was among the can- 
didates, and he bribed to a most enormous extent. Clodius 
stood for the prsetorship, and between his retainers and those 
of Milo and the other candidates scenes of tumult and 
bloodshed occurred in the streets almost daily. Pompeius 
and the tribune L. Munatius Plancus purposely kept the pa- 
tricians from meeting to appoint an interrex to hold the elec- 
tions. During this time Milo, who was dictator of his native 
place Lanuvium, had occasion to go thither to appoint a 
chief-priest ; Clodius, who had been to harangue the magis- 

* Cicero ad Att. iv. 18. 



DEATH OF CLODIUS. 405 

trates at Aricia, where he had a great deal of influence, hap- 
pened to be returning just at this time, and he met Milo 
near Bovilloe. Milo was in his carriage with his wife, the 
daughter of Sulla, and a friend, and he was attended by a 
numerous train, among which were some of his gladiators : 
Clodius was on horseback, with thirty armed bravos, who 
always accompanied him. Two of Milo's people followed 
those of Clodius and began to quarrel with them, and when 
he turned round to menace them, one of them ran a long 
sword through his shoulder. The tumult then became gen- 
eral ; Clodius had been conveyed into an adjoining tavern, 
but Milo forced it, dragged him out, and killed him out- 
right ; his dead body was thrown on the highway, where it 
lay till a senator, who was returqing to the city from his 
country seat, took it up and brought it with him in his litter. 
It was laid in the hall of Clodius' own house, and his wife 
Fulvia with floods of tears showed his bleeding wounds to 
the rabble who repaired thither, and excited them to ven- 
geance. Next morning Clodius' friends, the tribunes Q,. 
Pompeius Rufus and L. Munatius Plancus, exposed it on the 
Rostra, and harangued the populace over it. The mob 
snatched it up, carried it into the senate-house, and making 
a pyre of the seats burned it and the house together. They 
then ran to Milo's house intending to burn it also, but they 
were beaten off* by his slaves. 

The excesses committed by the mob having injured the 
Clodian cause, Milo ventured to return to the city, and to go 
on bribincT and canvassino; for the consulate. The tribune 
M. Coelius, whom he had gained, having filled the Forum 
with a purchased mob, led Milo thither to defend himself, in 
hopes of having him acquitted by them as by the people ; 
but the adverse tribunes armed their partisans and fell on 
and scattered them. Milo and Coelius were forced to fly in 
the dress of slaves ; the rabble killed, wounded, and robbed 
without distinction ; houses were broken open, plundered, 
and burnt, under the pretext of seeking for the friends of 
Milo. These excesses lasted for several days, and the senate 
at leno-th decreed that the interrex, the tribunes of the peo- 
ple, and Pompeius, should see that the republic sustained no 
injury ; and finally, as there seemed an absolute necessity 
for some extraordinary power, to avoid a dictatorship, and to 
exclude Caesar (who was spoken of) from the consulate, it 
was resolved on the motion of Bibulus, w^ith the assent of 
Cato, to make Pompeius sole consul. 



406 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Pompeius, as soon as he entered on his office, had two 
laws passed, one against violence, the other against bribery. 
He himself selected the persons who were to act as judges ; 
regulated the number of pleaders in a cause; gave two hours 
to the prosecutor to speak, three to the accused to reply, 
and forbade any one to come forward to praise the accused. 
To insure prosecutions for bribery, he promised a pardon to 
any one found guilty of it if he convicted two others of an 
equal or lesser degree, or one of a greater. 

These preparations being made, the prosecution of Milo 
commenced. L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the consul of the 
year 698, was chosen president by the people, and a jury, 
one of the most respectable we are assured that Rome ever 
beheld, was appointed. Milo and Ccelius had recourse to 
every means to prevent a conviction. The former was 
charged with having seized five persons who had witnessed 
the murder of Clodius, and kept them in close custody for 
two months at his country seat ; the latter with taking by 
force one of Milo's slaves out of the house of one of the 
Triumviri Capitales.*' Cicero was to plead Milo's cause. 
On the first day the tumult was so great that the lives of 
Pompeius and his lictors were endangered ; he had therefore 
soldiers placed in various parts of the city and Forum, with 
orders to strike with the flat of their swords any that were 
making a noise ; but this not sufficing, they were obliged to 
wound and even kill several persons. When quiet was re- 
stored, Cicero advanced to speak. He was received with a 
loud shout of defiance bv the Clodian faction ; and the sig-ht 
of Pompeius sitting surrounded by his officers, and the view 
of the temples and places around the Forum filled with 
armed men, so daunted him, that he pleaded with far less 
than his usual ability. Milo was found guilty, and he went 
into exile at Masilia. 

Other offenders were then prosecuted. P. Plautius Hyp- 
sseus was found guilty of bribery, as also were P. Sextius, 
C. Memmius, and M. Scaurus. This last then accused, 
under the late law, Pompeius' own father-in-law, Q,. Metel- 
lus Scipio.f Pompeius was weak enough to become a sup- 

^ The best account of the death of Clodius, and trial of Milo, is 
given by Asconius, in his argument to the notes on Cicero's oration. 
We have followed this writer chiefly in the preceding narrative. 

t Pompeius was now married to Scipio's daughter Cornelia, the 
widow of the younger Crassus, a young lady of the highest mental 
endowments and of great beauty and virtue. 



GALLIC WARS OF C^SAR. 407 

pliant for him, and he seftt for the three hundred and sixty 
persons who were on the jury-panel, and besought them to 
aid him. When Memmius saw Scipio come into the Forum 
surrounded by those who would have to try him, he gave 
over the prosecution, lamenting the ruin of the constitution. 
Rufus and Plancus when out of office were prosecuted for 
the burning of the senate-house, and Pompeius again was 
weak enough to break his own law by sending a written 
eulogy of Plancus into the court. Cato, who was one of the 
jury, said that Pompeius must not be allowed to violate his 
own law. Plancus then challenged Cato ; but it did not 
avail him, as the others found him guilty. 

Pompeius, having acted for some time as sole consul, made 
his father-in-law his colleague for the five months that re- 
mained of his consulate. He had his own command in 
Spain extended for another term of five years, but he gov- 
erned his province, as before, by legates ; and to soothe 
Csesar, he had a law passed to enable him to sue for the 
consulate without coming to Rome in person. To strengthen 
the laws against bribery, it was enacted that no consul or 
praBtor should obtain a province till he had been five years 
out of office ; and to provide for the next five years, it was 
decreed that the consulars and praetorians who had not had 
provinces should now take them. Cicero, therefore, much 
against his will, was obliged to go as proconsul to Cilicia ; 
his government of it was a model of justice and disinterested- 
ness, and proves how he would have acted if free at all times 
to follow his own inclinations, and, we must add, if less under 
tlie influence of vainglory and ambition. We must now 
turn our regards to Caesar and his exploits in Gaul. 

While such was the condition of affairs at Rome, this 
great man was acquiring the wealth and forming the army 
by means of which he hoped to become master of his coun- 
try. He has himself left a narrative of his Gallic campaigns, 
which, though of course partial,'* is almost our only author- 
ity for this part of the Roman history. 

Fortune favored Cassar by furnishing him with an early 
occasion of war, though his province was quite tranquil 
when he received it, (694.) The Helvetians,<a people of 
Gallic race, who dwelt from Mount Jura far into the Alps, 
resolved to leave their mountains and seek new seats in 

* Here, as in the Punic wars, we have reason to regret that the lions 
were not painters ! 



408 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Gaul : and having burnt all their towns and villages, they 
set forth with wives and children to the number of 350,000 
souls. As their easier way lay through the Roman province, 
they sent, on hearing that Csesar had broken down the 
bridge over the Rhone at Geneva, and was making prepara- 
tions to oppose them, to ask a free passage, promising to do 
no injury. Caesar, who had not all his troops with him, gave 
an evasive answer, and meantime ran a ditch and rampart 
from the Leman lake to Mount Jura. The Helvetians then 
turned, and going by Mount Jura entered the country of the 
Sequanians and ^Eduans ; but Csesar fell on them as they 
were passing the Arar, (Saone,) and defeated them ; he 
afterwards routed them again, and finally compelled them 
to return to their own country, lest the Germans should 
occupy it. 

The ^duans, who were ancient allies of Rome, then com- 
plained to Caesar that their neighbors, the Arvernians and 
Sequanians, having in their disputes with them invited a Ger- 
man chief named Ariovistus {Heer-furst, 'Army-prince?') 
to their aid, he had occupied a part of the land of the Se- 
quanians, and now menaced the freedom of all the surround- 
ing peoples ; their only hopes, they added, lay in the Ro- 
mans. This invitation was, as they knew, precisely what 
Caesar desired ; he promised aid, and as in his consulate he 
had had Ariovistus acknowledged as a king and friend of the 
Roman people, and he now wished to put him in the wrong, 
he sent to require him to meet him at a certain place. The 
German haughtily replied, that if Cssar wanted to speak 
with him he should come to him. Csesar, further to irritate 
him, desired him to give back the hostages of the allies of 
Rome, and not to enter their lands or to bring over anymore 
auxiliaries from Germany. Ariovistus replied by seizing on 
the Sequanian town of Besontion, (Besancon.) On learning 
that the powerful nation of the Suevians were sending troops 
to Ariovistus, Caesar resolved to march against him at once. 
But his soldiers were daunted by what they heard of the 
strength and ferocity of the Germans, till he made a speech 
to reassure them, in which he declared that with the tenth 
legion alone,he would prosecute the war. At the desire of 
Ariovistus a conference was held, at which however nothing 
could be arranged ; and while it Vv^as going on, news (true 
or false) was brought to Csesar that the Germans had at- 
tacked the Romans; this broke off the conference ; Csesar 



GALLIC WARS OF C^SAR. 409 

refused to renew it ; and a battle taking place, Ariovistus 
was defeated, and forced to recross the Rhine. 

Caesar then retired for the winter to Cisalpine Gaul, under 
the pretext of regulating the province, but in reality to keep 
up his communication with Rome, and acquire new friends 
there. As he had left his troops in the country of the Se- 
qaanians, the Belgians, a powerful people, who were a mix- 
ture of Germans and Gauls, and dwelt in the north-east of 
Gaul, fearing for their independence, resolved to take up 
arms. The Germans on this side of the Rhine joined them, 
and they invaded (695) the states in alliance with the Ro- 
mans. Caesar lost no time in repairing to the defence of his 
allies ; and the Belgians finding that the ^duans had in- 
vaded their country, and moreover, being in want of supplies, 
returned home; but they were fallen on and defeated with 
great loss by a division of Caesar's troops, and he himself 
entering their country took the town of Noviodunum, 
(Noyon,) and obliged the Suessiones, (Soissons,)* Bellava- 
cans, (Beauvais,) and Ambianians (Amiens) to sue for peace. 
He then entered the territory of the Nervians, (Hainault.) 
This people, the bravest of the Belgians, attacked him by 
surprise, routed his cavalry, and killed all the centurions of 
two legions ; the camps on both sides were taken, and Caesar 
himself was for some time surrounded with his guards on a 
hill : victory, however, was finally on the side of the Romans, 
and the Nervians sued for peace. The Atuaticans, when 
they saw the military machines advanced against their walls, 
submitted ; but they resumed their arms, and Caesar took 
and plundered the town, and sold 53,000 of the inhabitants. 
Caesar's legate, P. Crassus, who (we are not told why) had 
led a legion against the Venetans (Vannes) and other neigh- 
boring peoples on the Ocean, now sent to say that they had 
submitted. The legions were then placed for the winter in 
the country of the Carnutes, (Chartres,) Andes, (Anjou,) 
and Turones, (Tourraine,) and Caesar returned to Italy. 
On the motion of Cicero the senate decreed a supplication 
of fifteen^days for these victories, — the longest ever as yet 
decreed. 

During the winter P. Crassus, who was quartered with 
the. seventh legion in the country of the Andes, being in 
want of corn sent some of his officers to apply for some to 

* As in France the name of the people is usually retained only ii| 
that of the town, we give this last. 

35 zz 



410 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the Venetans and the adjoining peoples. The Venetans 
however detained the envoys, in order to get back their 
hostages in exchange, and the rest followed their example. 
Ccesar, when he heard of this, sent directions to have ships 
of war built on the Ligeris, (Loire,) and ordered sailors and 
pilots to repair thither from the province, and in the spring 
(696) he set out to take the command in person. The 
Venetans were a seafaring people, their towns mostly lay 
on capes, where they could not easily be attacked, and 
their navy was numerous. The contest Caesar saw must be 
on the sea, and his fleet therefore entered the ocean. The 
Roman ships of war were, as usual, impelled by oars, while 
those of the enemy, which were also much higher, were 
worked by sails. At first the advantage was on the side of 
the Gauls; but Caesar had provided a number of scythes set 
on poles, with which the Romans laid hold on the rigging 
of the Gallic ships, and then urging on their own, thus cut 
the cordage, and caused the sails to fall. This device, like 
that of the ravens in the old times, gave the Romans the 
victory : a sudden calm that came on was also greatly in 
their favor. The Venetans were forced to sue for peace, 
and as they had only detained his agents, Caesar was merci- 
fully content with putting their whole senate to death, and 
selling the people for slaves. 

As the Morinians and Menapians of the north coast (Pi- 
cardy) had been in league with the Venetans, Caesar invaded 
their country, which abounded in woods and marshes ; but 
the approach of the wet season obliged him to retire. Hav- 
ing put his troops into winter quarters, he set out to look 
after his affairs in Italy, and had the meeting at Luca with 
Pompeius and Crassus above related. During this summer 
P. Crassus, who had been sent into Aquitaine to keep it 
quiet, or rather, as it would appear, to raise a war, routed 
the Sotiates, (Sos,) forced their chief town to surrender ; 
and defeated a large army of the adjoining peoples, and the 
Spaniards who had joined them. Shortly after he left Gaul 
to join his father in Syria, taking with him 1000 Gallic 
horse. 

Tribes of Germans named Usipetes and Tencterians hav- 
ing crossed the Rhine and entered the Menapian country, 
Caesar feared lest their presence might induce the Gauls to 
rise, and hastened (697) to oppose them. Some negotiations 
took place between them, during which (if we may credit 
Caesar) a body of eight hundred German horse fell on, and 



GALLIC WARS OF CiESAR. 411 

even put to flight with a loss of seventy-four men, five thou- 
sand Roman cavalry ; and they then had the audacity to 
send an embassy, in which were all their principal men, to 
the Roman camp to justify themselves and to seek another 
truce. But Cassar was even with them ; he detained the 
envoys, and, having thus deprived them of their leaders, fell 
on and slaughtered them ; and most of those who escaped 
were drowned in the Rhine and Meuse as they fled. Being 
resolved that Gaul should be all his own, Cassar thought it 
would be well to show the Germans that their country too 
might be invaded. Accordingly, under the pretext of aiding 
the Ubians against the Suevians, he threw a bridge over the 
Rhine, and having ravaged the lands of the Sicambrians, 
who had retired to their woods, he entered the country of 
the Ubians ; then hearing that the Suevians had collected all 
their forces in the centre of their territory, and waited there 
to give him battle, he returned to the Rhine, having, as he 
says, accomplished all he had proposed. This run into 
Germany had occupied but eighteen days ; and as there was 
a part of the summer remaining, he resolved to employ it in 
a similar inroad into the isle of Britain, whose people had 
been so audacious as to send aid to the Gauls when fighting 
for their independence against him : moreover, the invasion 
of unknown countries, like Germany and Britain, would tell 
well at Rome. He accordingly had ships brought round 
from the Loire to the Morinian coast, (Boulogne,) and 
putting two legions on board he set sail at midnight. At 
nine next morning he reached the coast of Britain ; but as 
the clifl"s (Dover) were covered with armed men, he cast 
anchor, and in the evening sailed eight miles further down, 
(Deal.) and there effected a landing, though vigorously op- 
posed by the natives. The Britons soon sent to sue for 
peace ; and they had given some of the hostages demanded 
of them, when a spring-tide having greatly damaged the 
Roman fleet, they resolved to try again the fate of war. 
They fell on the seventh legion as it was out foraging, and 
Caesar had some difficulty in bringing it off; they afterwards 
assailed the Roman camp, but were repulsed, and Csesar, 
who had neither cavalry nor corn, and who wanted to get 
back to Gaul, readily made peace on their promise of send- 
ing a double number of hostages thither after him. He then 
departed ; and having written the wonderful news to Rome, 
a supplication of twenty days was decreed. 

As but two of the British states sent the hostages, CseSar 



412 HISTORY OF ROME. 

resolved to make this a pretext for a second invasion of their 
island. When, therefore, he was setting out as usual for 
Italy, he directed his legates to repair the old and build new 
ships ; and on his return in the spring (698) he found a 
fleet of twenty-eight long ships and six hundred transports 
ready. He embarked with five legions and two thousand 
Gallic horse, and landed at the same place as before. The 
Britons retired to the hills; and Caesar, having left some 
troops to guard his camp, advanced in quest of them. He 
found them posted on the banks of a river, (the Stour,) about 
twelve miles inlands. He attacked and drove them off; but 
next day, as he was preparing to advance into the country, 
he was recalled to the coast by tidings of the damage his 
fleet had sustained from a storm during the night. Having 
given the needful directions, he resumed his pursuit of the 
Britons, who laying asidiB their jealousies had given the su- 
preme command to Cassivelaunus, king of the Trinobantes, 
(Essex and Middlesex :) but the Roman cavalry cut them up 
so dreadfully when they attacked the foragers, that they 
dispersed, and most of them went to their homes. Caesar 
then advanced, and having forced the passage of the Thames 
invaded Cassivelaunus' kingdom, and took his chief town ; * 
and having received the submissions and hostages of various 
states, and regulated the tributes they should (but never did) 
pay, he returned to Gaul, where it being now late in autumn, 
he put his troops into winter quarters. The Gauls, however, 
who did not comprehend the right of Rome and Caesar to a 
dominion over them, resolved to fall on the several Roman 
camps, and thus to free their country. The eighth legion 
and five cohorts who were quartered in the country of the 
Eburones (Liege) were cut to pieces by that people, led by 
their prince Ambiorix ; the camp of the legate Q,. Cicero 
was assailed by the Eburones and the Nervians, and only 
saved by the arrival of Caesar in person, who gave the Gauls 
a total defeat. The country became now tolerably tranquil ; 
but Caesar, knowing that he should have a war in the spring, 
had three new legions raised in Italy, and he |51-evailed on 
Pompeius to lend him one which he had just formed. 

The most remarkable event of the following year (699) 
was Caesar's second passage of the Rhine to punish the 
• 

* The British towns were merely fastnesses in the woods, without 
any walls ; their dwellings were mere cabins. The Britons were 
much behind the Gauls in civilization. 



GALLIC WAJIS OF C^SAR. 413 

Germans for giving aid to their oppressed neighbors. He 
threw a bridge over the Rhine a little higher up the river 
than the former one, and advanced to attack the Suevians; 
but learning that they had assembled all their forces at the 
edge of a forest and there awaited him, he thought it ad- 
visable to retire, fearing, as he tells us, the want of corn in 
a country where there was so little tillage as in Germany.* 
Having broken down the bridge on the German side, and 
left some cohorts to guard what remained standing, he then 
proceeded with all humanity to extirpate the Eburones, on 
account, he says, of their perfidy. He hunted them down 
every where ; he burned their towns and villages, consumed 
or destroyed all their corn, and then left their country with 
the agreeable assurance that those who had escaped the 
sword would perish of famine. Then, havifig executed more 
majorum a prince of the Senones, and thus tranquillized 
Gaul, as he terms it, he set out for Italy to look after his 
interests there. 

The next year (700) there was a general rising of nearly 
all Gaul against the Roman dominion. The chief command 
was given to Vercingetorix, prince of the Arvernians, (Au- 
vergne,) a young man of great talent and valor. CaBsar 
immediately left Italy, and crossing Mount Cebenna, (Ce- 
vennes,) though the snow lay six feet deep on it, at the head 
of his raw levies entered and ravaged the country of the 
Arvernians, who sent to recall Vercingetorix to their aid. 
Then leaving M. Brutus in command, Caesar departed, and 
putting himself at the head of his cavalry, went with all 
speed to the country of the Lingones, (Langres,) and there 
assembled his legions. Vercingfetorix then laid sieffe to 
Gergovia, in the country of the Bituriges : Caesar hastened 
to his relief; on his way he took the towns of Vellanodunum 
(Beaune) and Genabum, (Orleans,) and having crossed the 
Loire, laid siege to Noviodiinum, (Nouan,) and on its sur- 
render advanced against Avaricum, (Bourges,) the capital 
of the country, and one of the finest cities in Gaul. Vercin- 
getorix, who had raised the siege of Gergovia, held a council, 
in which he proposed, as the surest mode of distressing the 
Romans, to destroy all the towns and villages in the country. 
This advice being approved of, upwards of twenty towns 
were levelled ; but, at the earnest entreaty of the Bituriges, 
Avaricum was exempted; a garrison was put into it, and 

* We may suspect that he feared something else also 
35* 



414 HISTORY OF ROME. * 

the Gallic army encamped at a moderate distance from the 
town in order to impede the besiegers. Avaricum never- 
theless was taken after a gallant defence : the Romans spared 
neither man, woman, nor child ; and of forty thousand in- 
habitants eight hundred only escaped. Csesar then laid 
siege to a town also named Gergovia; but, though he de- 
feated the Gallic armies, he was obliged lo raise it on account 
of the revolt of the JEduans. Some time after, Vercingeto- 
rix, having attacked Csesar on his march, and being repulsed, 
threw himself into Alesia, a strong town in the modern 
Burgundy, built on a hill at the confluence of two rivers. 
The Gauls collected a large army and came to its relief; 
but their forces were defeated, and the town was compelled 
to surrender. Vercingetorix was reserved to grace the 
conqueror's triumph, to whom a supplication of twenty days 
was decreed at Rome. 

In the next campaign (701) Cassar and his legates sub- 
dued such states as still maintained their independence. As 
the people of Uxellodunum (in Q-uerci) made an obstinate 
defence, CsBsar, (his lenity being, as we are assured, so 
well known that none could charge him with cruelty,) in 
order to deter the rest of the Gauls from insurrection and 
resistance, cut off the hands of all the men, and then let 
them go, that all might see them. The following year, 
(702,) as all Gaul was reduced to peace,* he regulated its 
affairs, imposing an annual tribute ; and, having established 
his dominion over it, he prepared to impose his yoke on his 
own country. 

The military talent displayed by Caesar in the conquest of 
Gaul is not to be disputed, and it alone would suffice to place 
him in the first rank .of generals. But is it to be endured 
that a man should obtain praise and renown for slaughtering 
innocent nations in order to be enabled to overthrow the 
constitution of his country 1 We are told that he took or 
received the submission of 800 towns, subdued 300 nations ; 
defeated in battle 3,000,000 of men, of whom 1,000,000 
were slain, and 1,000,000 taken and sold for slaves ;f and 
all this misery was inflicted that Csesar might be great ! 

* "Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem adpellant," said the Caledonian 
warrior. Tacit. Agric. 30. 

t Appian, Celt. 2. Pliny, H. N. vii. 25. 



COMMENCE.VIENT OF THE CIVIL WAR. 415 



CHAPTER X.* 

commencement of the civil war. c^sar at rome. 

— Cesar's war in spain. — surrender of massilia. — 
Cesar's civil regulations. — military events in epi- 
rus. 

There were now in the Roman world ^t wo men, Csesar 
and Pompeius, of weight and influence far superior to all 
others ; there were also two parties in the state, one for 
maintaining the constitution as it was, the other for revolu- 
tion ; it was therefore hardly possible that each party should 
not range itself under its appropriate chief, and a civil 
contest ensue. 

At the elections in 701f the consuls chosen for the fol- 
lowing year were L. JEmilius Paulus and M. Claudius Mar- 
cellus ; M. Coelius was one of the aediles, and C. Scribonius 
Curio one of the tribunes, — all hitherto of the aristocratic 
party ; but Caesar had secretly purchased Paulus and Curio, 
and he had also gained over Coelius. On the first of March 
(702) a motion which had long been meditated was made 
by the consul Marcellus for regulating the consular prov- 
inces, and therefore requiring Csesar to resign his command ; 
Curio, who was now openly on Caesar's side, declared his 
approbation of it, provided Pompeius did the same. To this 
the senate would not consent, and Curio then put his nega- 
tive on every other resolution. Pompeius was resolved that 
Csesar should not be consul, unless he resigned his army and 
provinces, and Caesar was persuaded that there was no safety 
for him if he left his army; for Cato and his friends had 
already menaced him with a prosecution for his illegal acts 
in his consulate. He however gave up two legions, to be 
sent to Syria ; but they were retained by Marcellus, and 
kept near the city. 

Pompeius was at this time as eager for war as Caesar pos- 
sibly could be. The zeal and anxiety shown by the people 

* Caesar, Civil Wars. Dion, xl. 58, to the end ; xli. 1 — 52. Ap- 
pian, B. C. ii. 26 — 65. Velleius, ii. 48 — 51. Suetonius, Jul. Csesar. 
Plutarch, Lives of Caesar and Pompeius. 

t At the elections of the preceding year Cato stood for the consulate, 
but as he would neither bribe nor court the electors he was of course 
unsuccessful. 



416 HISTORY OF ROME. 

of Italy, on occasion of an illness he had this year in Cam- 
pania, gave him the most exaggerated ideas of his influence 
over them, and he was completely misled by the accounts 
he received of the ill-humor of CsBsar's legions and the dis- 
affection of his provinces. He therefore derided those who 
expressed apprehension, and when some one said that if 
Cassar entered Italy there were no troops to oppose him, he 
replied, " Wherever I but stamp with my foot legions will 
rise up." 

On the first of January, 703, Curio came with a letter 
from Cesar, saying that he would lay down his command if 
PompeJus did the same ; otherwise he would march into 
Italy, and avenge himself and the republic. The consuls, 
C. Marcellus and L. Lentulus Crus, would not allov\^ the 
senate to take the letter into their consideration; and after 
some debate it was agreed to declare Ceesar a public enemy 
if he did not disband his army against a certain day. The 
tribunes M. Antonius and Q,. Cassius Longinus, sworn allifes 
of Cssar, put their negative on this decree, and nothing was 
then decided on. Pompeius expressed his approbation of 
the conduct of the consuls and more resolute members of the 
senate, and his veteran officers now began to flock from all 
sides to Rome in hopes of a war. The contest meantime in 
the senate was continued till the seventh day, when the 
consuls menaced the two tribunes, and it is even said ordered 
them to leave the house ; and a decree was made that the 
consuls and other magistrates should take care that the 
republic sustained no injury. That very night Antonius and 
Cassius, disguised as slaves, left Rome in a hired carriage, 
and hastened to join CsBsar, and they were followed by Curio 
and Ccelius. 

The senate was then, on account of Pompeius, held with- 
out the city, and he expressed his entire approbation of what 
had been done, and said that he had ten legions in arms, 
and that he knew Cesar's troops to be discontented. It was 
resolved that troops should be raised all through Italy, Pom- 
peius be supported with money out of the treasury, and 
governors be sent out to all the provinces. War in effect 
was declared against Cesar, 

Cesar was at Ravenna with but one legion when he heard 
of the proceedings against him. He forthwith assembled his 
soldiers and complained to them of the treatment he had 
received from the senate, and dwelt particularly on the indig- 
nities offered the tribunes. The soldiers having declared 



COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL WAR. 417 

their resolution to stand by him, he sent oflf orders to his 
legates in Transalpine Gaul to make all haste to join him 
with their troops, and he then set forward for Ariminum. 
It is said that he sent his cohorts on secretly before him with 
directions to occupy that town, the first in Italy, and that he 
himself, to obviate suspicion, having spent the day in view- 
ing the exercises of gladiators, sat down as usual to supper 
in the evening. When it grew dark he rose and went out, 
telling the company he would return presently. But he had 
desired some of his friends to set forth, and he himself 
mounting a hired horse took at first the contrary way, then 
turned and directed his course for Ariminum. When he 
came up with his troops at the Rubicon, a stream which 
divided Italy from Gaul, he halted and paused for some time, 
reflecting on the consequences of the step he was about to 
take. He debated the question with C. Asinius Pollio and 
his other friends : at length, bidding adieu to reflection, he 
cried out, "Let the die be cast!" he passed the bridge, 
followed by his troops, and at dawn entered and took pos- 
session of Ariminum, where he found Antonius and Cassius, 
whom he produced in their servile disguise to the soldiers, 
and expatiated on the wrongs they had sustained. He sent 
Antonius with five cohorts to seize Arretium ; others to 
Pisaurum, (Pesaro,) Fanura and Ancona, and Curio to 
Iguvium, (Agubbio,) while he himself remained to levy more 
troops. His principal legate T. Atius Labienus left him at 
this time, and went to join Pompeius and the senate, who 
were much animated by his arrival and the report he made 
of Caesar's forces. 

When the intelligence of Caesar's advance reached Rome, 
Pompeius, the consuls, and the senate retired with the utmost 
celerity to Capua, not even taking the money out of the 
treasury. P. Lentulus Spinther threw himself into Asculum 
with ten cohorts ; L. Domitius repaired to Corfinium, in 
order to impede Caesar's progress. Pompeius and the con- 
suls meantime went on with the levies in the colonies ; but 
the names were given slowly and reluctantly, and Pompeius 
now began to distrust his strength. It was therefore re- 
solved to try the way of accommodation, and the praetor L. 
Roscius and the young L. Caesar were sent to Caesar to learn 
his demands. These were that Pompeius should retire to 
his province, the new levies be disbanded, and the garrisons 
withdrawn ; Caesar would then disband his troops, give up 
his provinces, and come to Rome to stand for the consulate 

AAA 



418 HISTORY OF ROME. 

in the usual manner. These terms were accepted, even 
Cato consenting, provided Caesar vv^ithdrew his troops from 
the towns he had seized. With this last condition he de- 
clined to comply, alleging that he should not be safe if he 
did so. Various efforts were made to no purpose : letters 
were written and published in justification of either side, but 
war now seemed inevitable. Pompeius, who relied on his 
army in Spain, and on the troops of the East, sought only to 
gain time ; Ceesar, who had but one army, savv that his only 
hopes lay in despatch. Leaving Auximum, therefore, where 
he now was, he advanced with his single legion through 
Picenum to the town of Cingulum, which opened its gates 
when he appeared. He was here joined by his twelfth 
legion, and he went on to Asculum, which Lentulus quitted 
at his approach. Lentulus being deserted on his retreat by 
most of his men, joined L. Vibullius Rufus with the re- 
mainder, and their united force amounting to thirteen co- 
horts, they led it by forced marches to Corfinium and joined 
Domitius. While Csesar was advancing toward this town, 
Pompeius, who had reason to fear that he could not fully 
rely on the two legions he had with him, and seeing that the 
consular levies were not ready, wrote pressing Domitius to 
evacuate Corfinium, and to join him with the troops under 
him, as these were considered well afiected ; but Domitius 
chose to judge for himself, and when Ccesar appeared under 
the walls he wrote urging Pompeius to advance, and by 
getting in Cajsar's rear to cut off his supplies. Pompeius 
replied, declaring it to be out of his power, and again desir- 
ing him to try and join him if possible. Domitius dissembled 
the contents of this letter, and assured his men that Pom- 
peius was coming to their aid. But they observed that his 
looks did not correspond with his words, and they found 
that he was planning to make his escape. They mutinied, 
made him a prisoner, and sent deputies to surrender them- 
selves and the town to Csesar. Next morning Caesar had 
Domitius, Lentulus, and the other leading Pompeians brought 
before him, and after gently reproaching them with their 
opposition to him gave them their liberty and their property. 
He made the soldiers take the military oath to him, and, 
without loss of time, he set out for Apulia in pursuit of Pom- 
peius, who, having lost the better part of his army through 
Domitius' obstinacy, retired from Nuceria, where he then 
was, to Brundisium : for he had all along intended to pass 
over and transfer the war to Greece. Caesar made all haste 



COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL WAR. 419 

to impede him, and on the ninth of March he sat down be- 
fore Brundisium with six legions. Pompeius hfd but twenty 
cohorts in the town, as he had sent thirty with the consuls 
over to Dyrrhachium. Caesar attempted to shut him up by 
running moles across the mouth of the harbor ; but the 
consuls having sent back the shipping, Pompeius, on the 
seventeenth of March, embarked, and brought off his troops 
in a very masterly manner and departed, thus abandonino- 
Italy to his rival. 

Cicero greatly blames Pompeius for quitting Italy ; yet 
what could he have done ? He was deceived in all his ex- 
pectations of the public spirit of the people, his troops were 
all deserting, Csesar had eleven veteran legions and abun- 
dance of cavalry, the lower orders were in his favor or longed 
for a change, and the higher classes are thus described by 
Cicero himself: "I do not understand," says he to Atticus, 
" what you mean by patriots, (bonos ;) I know of none ; I 
mean I know of no order of men deserving that appellation. 
Take them man by man they are very worthy gentlemen, 
but in civil dissensions we are to look for patriotism in the 
constituent members of the body politic. Do you look for 
it in the senate ? Let me ask you by whom were the prov- 
inces left without governors ? Do you look for patriotism 
among the farmers of the revenue ? Alas ! they never were 
steady, and now they are entirely devoted to Caesar. Do 
you look for it in our trading or our landed interest? They 
are fondest of peace. Can you imagine that they have any 
terrible apprehension of living under a monarchy, they to 
whom all forms of government are indifferent, provided they 
enjoy their ease ? " * Italy therefore could not be main- 
tained ; but Pompeius' error lay, some thought, in not goinp- 
to Spain, where he had a veteran army and a brave popula- 
tion well affected to him. He certainly seems to have relied 
too much on the ability of his lieutenants there, and it may 
have been his plan (had not Caesar's celerity disconcerted it) 
to coop him up in Italy, and overwhelm him by a combined 
attack from the east and the west. At all events he had not 
shipping to convey his troops to Spain, and if he had gone 
thither Greece and the East would probably have been lost. 
But the great error of Pompeius and his party lay in their 

* Cic. to Alt., vii. 7. He says elsewhere, '' I have had a great deal 
of talk with our townsmen, and a great deal with our country gentle- 
men in these quarters, and take my word for it they have no concern 
but about their lands, their farms, and their money." 



420 HISTORY OF ROME. 

having give* Csesar's cause the semblance of justice and 
self-defence ; the term of his command was not expired when 
they required him to resign his provinces, and they refused 
to let him stand for the consulate when absent, in contraven- 
tion of Pompeius' own law to that effect. Csesar in fact had 
no alternative between victory and ruin ; he had no doubt 
voluntarily placed himself in that situation, but he was in it, 
and could not now recede. When we see such men as 
Asinius Pollio on his side, we may be sure that his cause 
was not so bad in the eyes of his contemporaries as it may 
seem in ours. In fact it is a mockery to dignify with the 
name of constitution the anarchy that had reigned for some 
years at Rome ; people plainly saw that Caesar or Pompeius 
must be master of the republic, and hence the indifference 
of which Cicero complains, and in which he partly shared. 

As the want of shipping prevented Csesar from following 
Pompeius, he resolved to turn his strength without delay 
against the army in Spain. Lest in his absence Pompeius 
should, as it was expected, try to starve Italy by stopping the 
supplies of corn, he took measures for securing Sicily, Sar- 
dinia, and Africa. Curio was sent to the former island, with 
directions when he had gained it to pass over to Africa; the 
legate Valerius to the latter, the people of which declared for 
him as soon as he appeared. Cato, to whom the senate had 
given charge of Sicily, at first made preparations for defence : 
but finding that Pompeius had abandoned Italy, he said he 
would not encrage the island in a war, and retired at the 
approach of Curio. Having settled Sicily, Curio passed with 
two legions over to Africa, where he had some success 
against P. Atius Varus, who commanded there for the sen- 
ate ; but his army was soon after cut to pieces and himself 
slain by the troops of Juba king of Numidia. 

Caesar proceeded from Brundisium to Rome ; the people 
of the towns on the way, some through love, some through 
fear, poured forth to congratulate him. He came to Rome, 
and, having assembled such of the senate^ as were attached 
to him, or who had not courage to refuse, he detailed his 
wrongs, as he affected to consider them ; dwelt on the cruelty 
and insolence, as he termed it, of those who had circum- 
scribed the tribunician power ; and begged of them to aid 
him in governing the republic, adding, that if they would 
not he would do it by himself He proposed that some one 
should be sent to treat with Pompeius : the senate approved, 
but no one was willing to go, as Pompeius had declared that 



C^SAR S WAR IN SPAIN. 421 

he should regard those who staid at Rome as much his 
enemies as those in Caesar's camp. Caesar then, having 
committed the charge of Rome to the praetor L. JEmilius 
Lepidus, and the command of the troops in Italy to M. 
Antonius, prepared to set out for Spain. He would not, 
however, imitate the folly or good faith of his opponents by 
leaving the treasury untouched ; and when the tribune L. 
Metellus, relying perhaps on the horror Cccsar had expressed 
at the violation of the sacred authority of the tribunes, ven- 
tured to oppose him and referred to the laws, he told him 
that this was no time to talk of laws, that he and all who 
had opposed must now obey him. When he came to the 
door of the treasury the keys were not to be found ; he then 
sent for smiths to break open the doors : Metellus again 
opposed; but Csesar threatened to slay him, and "Know, 
young man," added he, " that this is easier to do than to 
say." Metellus then withdrew, and the assertor of the laws 
took out all the money, even the most sacred deposits. This 
conduct disgusted the people so much that Caesar did not 
venture to address them as he had intended, and he left 
Rome after a stay of only six or seven days. 

When he came into Gaul he found that the citizens of 
Massilia had resolved not to admit him into their town, 
wishing, as they said, to remain neuter ; but when L. Do- 
mitius, to whom the senate had given the province of Cisal- 
pine Gaul, appeared before their port they received him. 
Caesar then laid siege to the town, having had some ships 
built for the purpose at Aries ; and leaving the conduct of 
the siege to C. Trebonius, and the command of the fleet to 
D. Brutus, he hastened on to Spain, having previously sent 
C. Fabius with three legions to secure the passes of the 
Pyrenees. On his way, to make sure of the fidelity of his 
troops, he borrowed all the money he could from his officers 
and distributed it among the soldiers, thus binding both to 
him by the ties of interest. 

Pompeius had three legates in Spain, L. Afranius, M. Pe- 
treius, and M. Terentius Varro, and their troops amounted 
to seven legions. When they heard of Caesar's approach, 
they agreed that Varro should remain with two legions in 
Ulterior Spain, v/hile Afranius and Petreius, with the re- 
maining five, should oppose the invader. They therefore 
encamped on an eminence between the rivers Cinga (Cinca) 
and Sicoris, (Segre,) near the town of Ilerda, (Lerida,) in 
which they had placed their magazines; and a bridge over 
36 



422 HISTORY OF ROME. 

the Sicoris kept up their communication with the country 
beyond it, whence they drew their supplies. When Fabius 
arrived, some skirmishing took place between him and the 
Pompeian generals, without any advantage on either side. 
Caesar, when he came, encamped at the foot of the hill on 
which the enemy lay, and forthwith made a bold attempt to 
seize an eminence in the plain between it and the town, as 
the possession of it would enable him to cut off their com- 
munication with the town and bridge. Afranius, aware of 
his design, had sent some troops to occupy it ; the Caesari- 
ans were driven off; they were reenforced, and chased the 
Afranians to the walls of Ilerda : the engagement lasted five 
hours, and Afranius finally remained in possession of the 
eminence, which he took care to fortify. Soon after a flood 
in the Sicoris carried away two bridges which Csesar had 
thrown over it; his communications being thus cut off, 
famine began to prevail in his camp, while the enemy had 
abundance of every thing. Having vainly endeavored to 
(repair the bridges, he gave orders to build a number of cora- 
cles, or boats of osier covered with raw hide, such as he had 
sseen in Gaul, which he conveyed in wagons twenty-two 
miles up the river, and passed a legion over in them ; and, 
having secured a hill on the other side, he then threw a 
bridge across. As he was greatly superior in cavalry the 
advantage was now on his side, and several of the native 
peoples declared for him. This bridge being too far off, he 
set about rendering the river fordable by cutting canals from 
it; and he had nearly completed his project, when Afranius 
and Petreius, having resolved to transfer the war to Celtibe- 
ria, set out for the Ebro, where they had a camp fortified 
and a bridge of boats constructed. As the Sicoris was still- 
too deep for his infantry to pass without hazard, Csesar sent 
over his cavalry to pursue and harass them ; but his infantry 
soon growing impatient, he was obliged to let them attempt 
the passage, though the stream was very rapid and the water 
above their shoulders. He placed two lines of cavalry in 
the stream, one above to break the force of the current, the 
ather below to stop those who might be carried away, and 
they thus got over without the loss of a single man. They 
came up with the enemy about three in the afternoon, and 
thus obliged them to encamp earlier than they intended. 
Next day both parties sent out to examine the country, and 
they found that all depended on which should first secure 
the passes in the hills between them and the Ebro. Caesar's 



SURRENDER OF MASSILIA. 423 

superior celerity however overcame all difficulties, and when 
the Afranians came in view of the passes they found his 
legions in array before them. They halted on a rising 
ground ; Caesar's officers and soldiers were urgent with him 
to attack them, but hoping to make them surrender by cut- 
ting off their provisions he allowed them to regain their 
camp. He then encamped close by them, having secured 
the passes to the Ebro. 

Conferences now took place between the soldiers of the 
two armies ; the Afranians proposed to join Caesar if the 
lives of their generals were spared, and some of their princi- 
pal officers went to treat with him. The men of both armies 
visited one another in their tents, and every thing seemed 
on the point of being arranged, when Petreius, arming his 
slaves, with some Spanish cavalry, forced his men to break 
off all conference, and put to the sword all the Caesarians 
w^hom he could find. He then went through the camp im- 
ploring the soldiers to have pity on him and Pompeius, and 
not thus to give them up to the vengeance of their enemy. 
He made the whole army renew their military oath, and 
ordered them to produce all the Caesarians in their tents that 
they might be put to death ; some obeyed, but the greater 
part concealed their friends and let them go in the night. 
Caesar, as he was wont, followed a different and a nobler 
course ; he sought out the Afranians and sent them back 
uninjured. The Pompeian generals now endeavored to re- 
turn to Ilerda, but they were so closely followed and harassed 
by the troops of Caesar, that they were obliged to halt and 
encamp on a hill, round which Caesar commenced drawing 
lines ; and he at length cut them off so completely from 
water and forage that they were obliged to propose a surren- 
der. He only required them to disband their forces and to 
quit Spain ; these terms were joyfully accepted : one third 
of the army, as having possessions in Spain, was discharged 
on the spot, the rest on the banks of the Var in Gaul. In 
Southern Spain Varro, finding the people of all the towns in 
favor of Caesar, resigned his command and left the province, 
the whole of which joyfully submitted to Caesar. 

Meantime Massilia was assailed and defended with equal 
energy and perseverance. At length however the works 
raised against the city were so numerous and powerful, that 
the people sent deputies offering a surrender, but requiring 
a truce till the arrival of Caesar. The truce was granted. 



% 
424 HISTORY OF ROME. 

but we are told they broke it : it was however again re- 
newed, and when Caesar came he obliged them to deliver up 
all their arms, ships and money, and receive a garrison of 
two legions into their town. He spared the town, he said, 
out of regard to its antiquity and renown, not for any merits 
its people had toward him. 

While Caesar was at Massilia he heard that, pursuant to 
his directions, Lepidus had a decree passed by the people for 
nominating him dictator to hold the elections. He did not 
however set out yet for Rome, but remained some time to 
regulate Cisalpine Gaul, and while he was there a mutiny 
broke out in the ninth legion at Placentia. The soldiers, 
probably as they had not yet gotten the plunder promised 
them, demanded their dismissal. Csesar coolly addressed 
them, reproaching them with their ingratitude and folly ; 
and telling them he never should want for soldiers to share 
his triumphs, said he would dismiss them, but that he would 
first punish them by decimation. They threw themselves at 
his feet imploring pardon ; their officers interceded ; Csesar 
was for some time inexorable ; at length he agreed to pardon 
all but one hundred and twenty of the most guilty, and these 
being given up he selected thirty of the most turbulent for 
execution. He then went to Rome to hold the consular 
elections, and had himself and P. Servilius Isauricus chosen 
consuls ; Trebonius and Ccelius were two of the new praetors. 
Antonius and others of his partisans, who were overwhelmed 
with debt, urged him to a total abolition of debts ; but Caesar, 
who wished to found an empire for himself, would establish 
no such precedent. He passed a law, directing that the 
property of debtors should be estimated at the value it bore 
before the war, and transferred to their creditors, adding 
that the interest which had been paid should be deducted 
from the principal ; by which the creditors lost about a fourth 
of their money. Caesar then had all those who had been 
condemned for bribery under Pompeius' law, and who had 
resorted to him, restored to their civic rights, — Milo, the 
slayer of his friend Clodius, was however excepted ; he also 
restored the sons of those who had been proscribed by Sulla. 
Having then held the Latin Holydays he laid down his dic- 
tatorship and set out for Brundisium, where, on the first of 
January, (704,) he entered on his office of consul. 

Pompeius meantime had been making every effort to 
collect a large fleet and army. Ships came from all the 



MILITARY EVENTS IN EPIRUS. 425 

ports of Greece and Asia, and a numerous navy was as- 
sembled, the chief command of which was given to Caesar's 
former colleague Bibuliis, His army consisted of nine Ro- 
man legions, besides the auxiliaries of Greece, Macedonia, 
and Asia. He had received large sums of money from the 
kings, princes, and states of the East ; he had collected great 
quantities of corn for the support of his army, which he 
intended should winter in the towns of the coast of Epirus, 
while his fleet cruised in the Adriatic to prevent Caesar's 
passage. Toward the end of the year, the consuls having 
assembled the senators, two hundred in number, who were 
with them at Thessalonica, and declared them to be the true 
senate, Pompeius was made commander in chief of the 
armies of the republic, and the consuls and other magistrates 
were directed to retain their offices under the titles of pro- 
consuls, etc. 

Caesar found twelve legions and all his cavalry at Brun- 
disium, but the legions had been so reduced by fatigue and 
sickness that they were very incomplete. The ships which 
had been collected barely sufficed to transport seven legions 
(only 20,000 men) and six hundred horse ; but with these 
he embarked, and eluding Bibulus landed at a place named 
Pharsalus, in Epirus ; he then sent back the ships for the 
rest of his troops, but Bibulus met them and took thirty, and 
then strictly guarded the whole coast. Caesar received the 
submissions of the towns of Oricum and Apollonia ; and 
most of the states of Epirus declared for him. He was ad- 
vancing against Dyrrhachium, when, hearing that Pompeius 
was rapidly marching to its defence, he halted and encamped 
on the banks of the river Apsus, whither Pompeius came, 
and encamped also on the other side of that river. Accord- 
ing to Caesar's own account he was so anxious for peace, 
that immediately on landing he had sent off L. Vibullius 
Rufus, whom he had twice made a prisoner, proposing to 
Pompeius that they should both disband their armies and 
submit to the decision of the senate and people. Vibullius 
had gone off" with all speed, more with the intention of in- 
forming Pompeius of Caesar's landing than of promoting 
peace, and it was only in his camp on the Apsus that Pom- 
peius heard of these proposals, to which however he refused 
to listen. Ceesar also tells us that as the soldiers of the two 
armies used to converse together across the river, he directed 
his legate P. Vatinius to go and call out, asking if citizens 

36 * B B B 



426 HISTORY OF ROME. 

might not send to citizens to treat of peace, a thing Pom- 
peius had not refused to robbers and pirates. He was heard 
in silence, and told that A. Varro would come the following 
day to treat. Next. day a great number appeared on both 
sides, and Labienus advanced and began in a low voice to 
confer with Vatinius ; a shower of missiles, which wounded 
several of the CsBsarians, broke off the conference, and 
Labienus then cried, " Give over talking of accommodation ; 
there can be no peace unless you bring us Cassar's head." 

While Caesar was Ijing on the Apsus, his friend Ccelius, 
whom he had left one of the praetors at Rome, displeased 
that he had not been able to get rid of all his debts, began to 
raise disturbances. He commenced by opposing Trebonius 
in every way he could ; and this not succeeding, he proposed 
two laws, the one for exempting from rent all the tenants of 
the state, the other for a general abolition of debt. At the 
head of the multitude he then attacked Trebonius, and 
wounded some of those about him : the senate in return 
forbade him to execute the functions of his office. He then 
left Rome under the pretence of going to Caesar, but he had 
secretly written to his old friend Milo urging him to come 
and raise some disturbance in Italy ; and Milo, having col- 
lected his gladiators and what other forces he could, had laid 
siege to the town of Cosa, near Thurii. Coelius proceeded 
to join him, but Milo had been killed by a stone flung from 
the walls; and Coelius, attempting to seduce some Gallic 
and Spanish horse that were in Cosa, was slain by them. 

Caesar's great object now was to get over the rest of his 
troops, and Pompeius was equally anxious to prevent their 
passage. Bibulus had lately died of an illness caused by 
cold and fatigue ; but Libo and others kept the sea, and 
impeded the transport. Some months had now passed, and 
as the wind had frequently been favorable for them, Caesar 
thought there must be some fault on the part of M. Antonius 
and Q,. Fufius Calenus, who commanded at Brundisium, and 
he wrote to them in the most peremptory terms. He even, 
it is said, resolved to pass over in person, and disguising 
himself as a slave he embarked in a fishing-boat at the mouth 
of the Apsus; but the sea proved so rough that the fishermen 
feared to go on ; Caesar then discovered himself, saying to 
the master, " Why dost thou fear ? thou carriest Cassar ! " 
and they made another attempt ; but the sea was so furious 
that he was obliged to let them put back again. 



MILITARY EVENTS IN EPIRUS. 427 

At length Antonius put to sea, and succeeded in landing 
near Lissus. Cnesar and Pompeius, when they heard of his 
arrival, both put their troops in motion, the one to join, the 
other to attack him. Antonius kept within his entrench- 
ments till CcBsar came up. Pompeius then retired ; Caesar 
followed him ; and having offered him battle in vain, set out 
for Dyrrhachium. Pompeius delayed for one day, and then 
took a shorter route for the same place, and encamped on a 
hill named Petra near it, close to the sea. As there were 
hills at a little distance near Petra, Caesar raised forts on 
them, proposing to circumvallate Pompeius' camp. Pom- 
peius, to oblige him to take in a greater space, also formed 
a line of forts, inclosing an extent of fifteen miles, so as to 
yield him forage for his cavalry ; and he received abundant 
supplies by sea, while Caesar's men were obliged to live 
chiefly on a root, named chara, for want of bread. But the 
forage soon began to run short with Pompeius' army ; and as 
Csesar had turned the streams, the want of water also was 
severely felt. At length Pompeius made a bold and judicious 
attack on the enemy's lines, and forced them ; and in the 
action which ensued he gained the victory. Caesar then 
resolved to transfer the war to Macedonia, and he set out for 
that country, closely followed by Pompeius. After a pursuit 
of three days Pompeius changed his course, and taking a 
nearer route arrived the first in Macedonia, where he was 
near surprising Caesar's general Cn. Domitius Calvinus. 
Caesar entered Thessaly and took the town of Gomphi by 
assault, and then advanced and encamped near the town of 
Metropolis. Pompeius entered Thessaly a few days after, 
and joined his father-in-law Scipio, who lay at Larissa ; and 
the two armies finally encamped opposite each other on the 
ever-memorable plain of Pharsalus. 



428 HISTORY OF ROME 



CHAPTER XI.* 

BATTLE OF PHARSALIA. FLIGHT AND DEATH OF POMPEIUS. 

HIS CHARACTER. C^SAR's ALEXANDRIAN WAR. THE 

PONTIC WAR. AFFAIRS OF ROME. MUTINY OF C^ESAr's 

LEGIONS. AFRICAN WAR. DEATH OF CATO, HIS CHAR- 
ACTER. CJilSAR's TRIUMPHS. REFORMATION OF THE 

CALENDAR. SECOND SPANISH WAR. BATTLE OF MUNDA. 

HONORS BESTOWED ON C^SAR. CONSPIRACY AGAINST 

HIM. HIS DEATH. HIS CHARACTER. 

The two armies now lay in sight of each other ; that of 
Pompeius, which consisted of forty-five thousand men, of 
which more than a sixth was cavalry, was superior in number 
but inferior in quality. Caesar's army, of twenty-two thou- 
sand men, only one thousand of whom were cavalry, were 
all hardy veterans, used to victory and confident in them- 
selves and their leader. 

The superior number of their troops and their late suc- 
cesses had raised the confidence of the Pompeian leaders, 
and nothing, we are told, could exceed their insolence ; they 
contended with one another for the dignities and priesthoods 
in the state, and disposed of the consulate for several years 
to come. Scipio, Lentulus Spinther, and L. Domitius had 
an angry contest for the chief-priesthood with which Csesar 
was invested, for of his defeat not a doubt was entertained ; 
and when Pompeius acted with caution, he was accused of 
protracting the war out of the vanity of seeing such a num- 
ber of consulars and praetorians under his command. Pro- 
scriptions and confiscations were resolved on ; in short, says 
Cicero, *' excepting Pompeius himself and a few others, 
(I speak of the principal leaders,) they carried on the war 
with such a spirit of rapaciousness, and breathed such prin- 
ciples of cruelty in their conversation, that T could not think 
even of our success without horror. To this I must add, 
that some of our most dignified men were deeply involved in 

* Csesar, Civil Wars. Hirtius' and others' Books of the Alexan- 
drian, African, and Spanish Wars. Dion, xli. 53, to the end; xlii., 
xliii., and xliv. Appian, ii. 56, to the end. Suetonius, Jul. Csesar 
Plutarch, Lives of Pompeius, Cajsar, Cato, and Brutus. 



BATTLE OF PHARSALIA. 429 

debt; and, in short, there was nothing good among them 
bat their cause." * 

Pompeius, who was superstitious by nature, had been 
greatly encouraged by accounts of favorable signs in the en- 
•trails of the victims and such like sent him by the haruspices 
from Rome, and he resolved to risk a general engagement. 
He drew up his army at the foot of the hill on which he was 
encamped ; but Caesar, unwilling to engage him to a disad- 
vantage, prepared to decamp. Just, however, as the order 
was given, seeing that Pompeius had advanced into the plain, 
he changed his mind, and made ready to engage. The right 
wing of the Pompeians, commanded by Lentulus, rested on 
the river Enipeus. Pompeius himself, with Domitius, com- 
manded the left ; his father-in-law, Scipio, the centre ; the 
horse and light troops were all on the left Caesar's right 
was commanded by himself and P. Sulla; his left by M. 
Antonius ; the centre by Domitius Calvinus : to strengthen 
his cavalry, he had mingled through it some of his most 
active foot-soldiers ; and he placed six cohorts separate from 
his line, to act on occasion against the enemy's horse. 
Pompeius had directed his men to stand and receive the 
enemy's charge, hoping thus to engage them when out of 
breath with running ; but the Csesarians, when they found 
that the enemy did not advance, halted of themselves, and, 
having recovered their breath, advanced in order and hurled 
their pila. They then fell on sword in hand ; the Pompeians 
did the same ; and while they were engaged, their horse and 
light troops having attacked and defeated Csesar's cavalry 
were preparing to take his infantry in flank, when he made 
the signal to the six cohorts, who fell on and drove them off 
the field. It is said that Gcesar had directed his men to aim 
their blows at the faces of the horsemen, and that the young 
Roman knights fled sooner than run the risk of having their 
beauty spoiled,! The six cohorts then took the Pompeian 
left wing in the rear, while Caesar brought his third line, 
which had not been yet engaged, against it in front. It 
broke/fc and fled to the camp. Pompeius, whose whole reli- 
ance was on his left wing, now despairing of victory, retired 
to his tent to await the event of the battle. But Caesar soon 
led his men to the attack of the camp, which was carried 

* Cic. ad Divers, vii. 3. Cicero always speaks with horror an^' 
apprehension of the success of the Pompeians. 

t This is not very hkely; the young Roman knights could hava 
formed but a small part of a body of 7000 horse. 



430 ' HISTORY OF ROME. 

after an obstinate resistance from the cohorts which had 
been left to guard it. Pompeius, laying aside his general's 
habit, mounted a horse, and left it by the Decuman gate. 
Caesar found the tents of Lentulus and others hung with ivy, 
fresh turves cut for seats, tables covered with plate, and all' 
the preparations for celebrating a victory. Leaving some 
troops to guard the two camps, he followed a body of the 
Pompeians who had fled to a hill, but they abandoned it and 
made for Larissa ; he however got between them and that 
town, and finally forced them to surrender. His own loss 
in this battle, he tells us, was only 200 men and 30 centuri- 
ons ; that of the Pompeians was 15,000, of whom but 6000 
were soldiers, the rest being servants and the like : upwards 
of 24,000 were made prisoners. He granted life and liberty 
to all ; and finding, it is said, in Pompeius' tent the letters 
of several men of rank, he imitated the conduct of Pompeius 
in Spain, and burned without reading them. L. Domitius 
had been slain in the pursuit ; Labienus fled with the Gallic 
horse to Dyrrhachium, where he found Cicero and Varro 
with Cato, who commanded there; they passed over to Cor- 
cyra, and being joined by the young Cn. Pompeius and other 
commanders of the fleet, held a council ; but as they could 
decide on nothing, they separated, and went different ways. 
Labienus, Scipio and some others sailed to Africa to join 
Varus and king Juba ; Cato and young Pompeius went in 
quest of Pompeius; Cicero returned to Italy, intending to 
seek the victor's clemency. 

We must now follow the unhappy Pompeius Magnus. 
He rode with about thirty followers to the gates of Larissa, 
but would not enter the town lest the people should incur 
the anger of Csesar. He then went on to the Vale of 
Tempe, and at the mouth of the Peneus got on board a 
merchantman which he found lying there ; thence he sailed 
to the mouth of the Strymon, and, having gotten some money 
from his friends at Amphipolis, proceeded to Mytilene in 
Lesbos, where he had left his wife Cornelia, Havina; taken 
her and his son Sextus on board, and collected a few "ressels, 
he proceeded to Cilicia, and thence to Cyprus. He had 
intended going to Syria, but finding that the people of An- 
tioch had declared for Caesar, as also had the Rhodians, he 
gave up that design; and having gotten money from the 
publicans and some private persons, and collected about two 
thousand men, he made sail for Egypt. 

It is said that he had consulted with his friends whether 



FLIGHT OF POMPEIUS. 431 

he should seek a refuge with the king of the Parthians, or 
retire to king Juba in Africa, or repair to the young king of 
Egypt, whose father had been restored to his throne through 
his influence some years before.* The latter course was 
decided on, and he sailed for Pelusium, where the young 
king (who was at war with his sister Cleopatra, whom their 
father had made joint heir of the throne) was lying with his 
army. Pompeius sent to request his protection, on account 
of his friendship for his father. The king's ministers, either 
fearing that Pompeius, by means of the troops which had 
been left there by Gabinius, might attempt to make himself 
master of the kingdom, or despising his fallen fortunes, 
resolved on his death. They sent Achillas, a captain of the 
guard, with Septimius, a former Roman centurion, and some 
others, in a small boat to invite him to land. He was re- 
quested to come into the boat, as the shore was too oozy 
and shallow for a ship to approach it. He consented, and 
directing two centurions and his freedraan Philip and a slave 
to follow him, and having embraced Cornelia, he entered 
the boat, and then turning round repeated the following 
lines of Sophocles : 

He who unto a prince's house repairs 
Becomes his slave, though he go thither free.t 

They went on some time in silence ; at length Pompeius, 
turning *to Septimius, said, " If I mistake not, you and I 
have been fellow-soldiers." Septimius merely nodded as- 
sent; the silence was resumed; Pompeius began to read 
over what he had prepared to say to the king in Greek. 
Meantime the boat approached the shore ; Cornelia and his 
friends saw several of the royal officers coming down to 
receive Pompeius, who, taking hold of Philip's arm, rose 
from his seat. As he rose, Septimius stabbed him in the 

* PtolemsBus Auletes promised Caesar 6000 talents for himself and 
Pompeius, for having him acknowledged as king of Egypt by the 
senate. He was forced by his subjects to fly when he oppressed them 
by raising that sum. He came to Rome ; Pompeius wished to have 
the profitable task of restoring him ; but the laws and Sibylline oracles 
were alleged by his opponents, and Ptolemaeus being obliged to leave 
Rome for having poisoned the ambassadors sent thither by his subjects, 
Pompeius gave him letters to Gabinius, the governor of Syria, who, 
on being promised by him 10,000 talents, set the laws and oracles at 
nought, marched his troops out of his province, and replaced him on 
the throne of Egypt. 

t "' Ooxig 8s TtQoq rvgavvov fUTVOQivsTai 
Ksivov 'otI SovXog, y.av fXsv-&sQog fioXij. 



432 HISTORY OF ROME. 

back ; Achillas and a Roman named Salvias then struck 
him : Pompeius drew his gown before his face, groaned, and 
died in silence. Those on ship-board gave a loud, piercing 
cry of grief, and set sail without delay, pursued by some 
Egyptian vessels. The head of Pompeius was cut off; his 
trunk was thrown on the beach, where his faithful freedman 
staid by it, and, having washed it in the sea, collected the 
wreck of a fishing-boat and prepared a pyre to burn it. 
While he was thus engaged, an old Roman who had served 
under Pompeius came up, and saying that the honor of 
aiding at the obsequies of the greatest of Roman generals 
compensated him in some sort for the evils of an abode in a 
foreign land, assisted him in his pious office. 

Such was the end of Cn. Pompeius Magnus, in the fift}^- 
eighth year of his age. In his person he was graceful and 
dignified ; he spoke and wrote with ease and perspicuity, 
and was always heard with attention and respect. In pri- 
vate life his morals were remarkably pure, unstained by the 
excesses which disgraced CjEsar and so many others at that 
time ; of the amiability of his character there can be no 
stronger proof than the fact of his having gained the entire 
and devoted affection of two such women as Julia and Cor- 
nelia, both so many years younger than himself The public 
character of Pompeius is far less laudable; his love of sway 
was inordinate ; he could not brook a rival ; he would, how- 
ever, be the freely chosen head of the republic, and in such 
case would have respected and maintained the laws. Not 
succeeding in this course he was led to the commission of 
several illegal acts, and he formed that fatal coalition with 
Caesar, for whom neither as a statesman nor as a general 
was he a match, and who, during their union, always exerted 
over him the power of a superior mind, and that mostly for 
evil. Pompeius was by no means inclined to cruelty; yet 
Cicero feared, and with reason, that his victory would have 
been more sanguinary than that of Csssar ; for though his 
natural humanity might have kept him from imitating Sulla 
as he threatened, he had not Caesar's energy to restrain the 
violence of his followers. Caesar, we must allow, was better 
fitted for empire ; Pompeius was by far the better man. 

Caesar, on learning that Pompeius was gone to Egypt, 
made all the speed he could to overtake him, and thus end 
the war. He arrived at Alexandria with two legions, (3200 
foot and 800 horse :) the head and ring of Pompeius were 
presented to him ; he shed some tears (counterfeit, we may 



CiESAR's ALEXANDRIAN WAR. 433 

well suspect) over them, and caused the head to be burnt 
with costly spices. He then set about regulating the affairs 
of Egypt, and he summoned Ptolemaus and his sister before 
him.* The superior influence of Cleopatra was soon ap- 
parent, and Pothinus, the young king's minister, seeing the 
small number of the Roman troops, sent to desire Achillas 
to advance with the army from Pelusium. This army con- 
sisted of eighteen thousand foot and two thousand horse, all 
good troops, several of them being Romans left by Gabinius, 
and Caesar found it necessary to act on the defensive, 
Achillas made himself master of all the town except the 
palace which Csesar had fortified. A great struggle was 
made for the port, as with the shipping there the blockade 
of the palace might be made complete. Caesar however 
succeeded in burning all the ships in it ; unfortunately the 
flames extended, and the magnificent library of the kings 
was nearly all consumed. He then secured the island of 
Pharos, at the mouth of the port, and the mole leading to it. 
Ganymedes, the successor of Achillas who had been slain, 
then mixed sea-water with that of the Nile in the aqueducts 
which supplied Caesar's quarters ; but this evil he obviated 
by sinking wells. In a naval action in the port, Caesar, with 
only a few ships, gained the advantage; but, in an attempt 
to retake the mole and island, which the Alexandrians had 
recovered, he lost about eight hundred men and some ships, 
and he had to throw himself into the water and swim to a 
merchantman for safety. t 

The Alexandrians now sent to demand their king who was 
in his hands, and Csesar, seeing no use in detaining him, let 
him go, and the war was then renewed more fiercely than 
ever. Meantime Mithridates, an officer whom Csesar had 
sent to levy troops in Syria, was advancing with a large army 
to relieve him, but as he had to go round the Delta, the 
young king despatched a part of his army to oppose him. 
These troops, however, were defeated ; the king hastened 
with the rest of his army to their aid, and Csesar at the same 
time joined Mithridates. He now resolved to try and ter- 

* It is said that, to escape her brother's troops, Cleopatra had her- 
self wrapped up in a bale of bedclothes, and thus conveyed into Alex- 
andria. 

t He held, it is said, on this occasion, his papers with one hand over 
the water to save them from being wetted. It is rather strange that 
he should have had papers in his hand, or even about hinij in such a 
hot engagement. 

37 c c c 



434 HISTORY OF ROME. 

minate the war by an attack on the Egyptian camp, which 
was on an eminence over the Nile, one of its sides being 
defended by the steepness of the ground, the other by a 
morass. While the attack was carried on in the front of the 
camp, some cohorts climbed up the steep of the hill, and fell 
on the enemy's rear. The Egyptians fled on all sides, 
mostly to the Nile, and the king trying to escape was drowned 
in the river. Csesar returned to Alexandria, whose inhabi- 
tants came forth, preceded by their priests, to implore his 
mercy. He gave the crown to Cleopatra and her younger 
brother, leaving them the greater part of his troops to pro- 
tect them, and then set out for Syria. After his departure 
Cleopatra was delivered of a son, who was said to be his, 
and was named Ceesarion. 

When the civil war broke out, Pharnaces, the son of 
Mithridates the Great, resolved to seize the occasion of re- 
covering his paternal dominions. He speedily regained 
Pontus, and then overran Lesser Armenia and Cappadocia. 
Deiotarus, the king of the former, applied for aid to Cn. 
Domitius, who commanded for Caesar in Asia ; and after 
some fruitless attempts at negotiation, Domitius collected 
what troops he could, and advancing to Nicopolis gave 
Pharnaces battle , but he was defeated and forced to retire. 
Caesar was meantime hastening from Egypt ; for though he 
had learned that things were in the utmost confusion at 
Rome, he resolved not to quit Asia till he had reduced it to 
peace. Though his force was small, he decided on giving 
battle without delay, and he advanced to within five miles 
of Pharnaces' camp, which was on a hill, and commenced 
fortifying another hill in its vicinity. Pharnaces, relying on 
the number of his troops, and recollecting that it v/as in this 
very place his father had defeated Triarius, crossed the 
valley, and, leading his army up the hill, attacked the P^oman 
troops. The battle was long and dubious ; at length the 
right wing of the Romans was victorious, the centre and left 
were soon equally successful; the enemy was driven down 
the hill and pursued to his camp, which was speedily taken : 
Pharnaces himself escaped, but nearly his whole army was 
slain or taken. " I came, I saw, I conquered," {Vejii, vidi, 
vici,) were the terms in which Cassar wrote to announce 
this victory, which ended the Pontic war. 

Having regjil^ted the affairs of Asia, Cscsar set out for 
Italy : at Brundisium he was met by Cicero, whom he re- 
ceived very kindly ; he then ^vent on to Rome, which he 



AFFAIRS OF ROME. 435 

found in a state of distraction. For Csesar, having been 
created dictator after the battle of Pharsalia, had sent M. 
Antonius, his master of the horse, to govern Italy in his 
absence; Jind P. Cornelius Dolabella, another of his friends, 
being made one of the tribunes, had revived the laws of 
Ca3lius for the abolition of debts and rents. Antonius, who 
like Dolabella was immersed in debt, was at first willincr to 
support him, but he finally sided with the senate and two of 
the other tribunes in opposing him. The people were of 
course for Dolabella, and such conflicts jkook place, during 
an absence of Antonius, between debtors and creditors, that 
the Vestals found it necessary to remove Jhe sacred things 
to a place of safety. When Antonius returned the senate 
gave him the usual charge to see that the state suffered no 
injury. Dolabella, on the day of proposing his laws, had the 
Forum barricadoed, and even wooden towers erected to keep 
off all opponents ; but Antonius came down with soldiers 
from the Capitol, broke the tables of the laws, and seizing 
some of the more turbulent flung them down from the Tar- 
peian rock. When Caesar arrived he took no notice of what 
had occurred ; he however steadily refused the abolition of 
debts, but remitted the interest that had accrued since the 
war began, and he also remitted to those who paid under 
20G0 sesterces rent, a year's rent at Rome, a quarter's 
throughout Italy. To gratify his friends, he let them have 
good bargains at the sales of the properties of Pompeius and 
others w^hich he confiscated ; he increased the number of 
priesthoods and praetorships, and placed several of his officers 
in the senate. Having had himself and his master of the 
horse, M. Lepidus, (for he continued to be dictator,) chosen 
consuls for the following year, he was preparing to pass over 
to Africa, when a mutiny broke out among his veteran le- 
gions, who were disappointed at not having yet gotten the 
rewards that had been promised them. It began with his 
favorite tenth legion. C. Sallustius, (the historian,) whom 
he sent to assure them that when the war was ended they 
should have 1000 denars a man, besides the lands and money 
already due to them, was obliged to fly for his life. They 
marched from Campania to Rome, plundering and murder- 
ing on their way, and came and posted themselves on the 
Field of Mars, Csesar, in spite of his friends, went out, and 
mounting his tribunal demanded what had brought them 
thither and what they wanted. They were disconcerted, 
and merely said that they l^ad hoped he would give them 



436 HISTORY OF ROME. 

their discharge in consequence of their woiyids and length 
of service. "I give it you," said he, and then added, " and 
when I have triumphed with other soldiers I will still keep 
my word with you." He was retiring ; his officers stopped 
him, and begged him to be less severe, and to speak to them 
again. He addressed them, commencing with Quirites ! 
and not as usual Commilitones ! This totally overcame them ; 
they cried out they were his soldiers, and would follow him 
to Africa or any where else if he would not cast them off; 
he then pardoned them, and passed over at their head to 
Sicily, though it was now far in the winter, 

-The Porapeians, aided by king Juba, were now in great 
force in Africa. Cato, having met Pompeius' ships, with 
Cornelia and Sex. Pompeius at Cyrene, landed all his troops 
there, and marching them over land to the African province 
joined Scipio and the other leaders. The chief command 
was given to Scipio as being a consular, and Cato took the 
government of the town of Utica. 

CaBsar, having assembled six legions in Sicily, set sail from 
Lilybeeum with a part of them (about 3000 men) and landed 
near Adrumetum. Having failed to take that town, he pro- 
ceeded to another named Ruspina, which he reached on the 
first January, (706 ;) he thence advanced to Leptis, but he 
soon returned in order to go and look after his fleet, which 
had steered by mistake for Utica. Having been joined by 
the troops on board the fleet he encamped at Rnspina, and 
some days after engaged a numerous army, chiefly Numidi- 
ans, commanded by Labienus. The battle lasted from be- 
fore mid-day to sunset, and the advantage was on the side of 
Labienus. As Scipio and Juba were said to be approaching 
with eight legions and three thousand horse, Caesar fortified 
his camp with the greatest care, and sent to Sicily and else- 
where for supplies. When Scipio came he oflTered battle 
repeatedly; but Csesar, taught by the experience of the late 
action, steadily refused to fight ; endeavoring at the same 
time to gain over Scipio's troops and the people of the 
country, in which he is said to have had some success. 
After some time he found himself strong enough to offer 
battle , but Scipio had now prudently resolved to protract 
the war. Caesar then decamped at midnight, and went and 
laid siege to the town of Thapsus. Scipio and Juba fol- 
lowed him thither, and forming two camps about eight miles 
from his, attempted to throw succors into the town ; failing 
in this, they resolved to give him battle, though Cato, it is 



* AFRICAN WAR. 437 

said, strongly advised against it. Scipio moved down to the 
seaside, and having thrown up some intrenchments drew his 
army out before them with his elephants on the wings. 
Caesar also drew out his nine legions. While he was hesi- 
tating whether to attack or not, a trumpeter sounded on the 
right wing; the troops then charged in spite of their officers : 
the elephants, not being well trained, turned on their own 
men when assailed by the missiles, and rushed into the camp. 
Scipio's troops broke and fled to their former camp, and then 
to that of Juba ; but this also being forced they retired to a 
hill, whither they were pursued and slaughtered by Cassar's 
veterans. Ten thousand was the number of the slain ; the 
loss of the victors was but fifty men. Caesar then leaving 
three legions to blockade Thapsus, and sending two against 
a town named Tisdra, advanced with the remainder toward 
Utica. 

Cato, who commanded in this town, had formed a council 
of three hundred of the Roman traders who resided in it. 
When the news of the defeat at Thapsus arrived, he assem- 
bled his council and tried to animate them ; but finding 
them inclined to have recourse to Csesar's clemency, he gave 
up all hopes of defending the town, and sent word to that 
effect to Scipio and Juba, who were now in the neighbor- 
hood. Soon after the cavalry which had fled from Thapsus 
arrived ; Cato went out to try and engage them to stay, but 
while he was away the three hundred met and determined 
on a surrender : when he heard this he prevailed on the 
cavalry to stop for one day, and he put the gates and citadel 
into their hands ; his object being to get time to send away 
the Roman senators and others by sea. Having closed all 
the gates but one leading to the port, he got ships and every 
thing ready for those who were to go. Meantime ihe cavalry 
had begun to plunder ; but he went to them, and by giving 
them money prevailed on them to leave the town : he then 
went down to the port to see his friends off. He afterwards 
arranged his accounts, and commended his children to his 
quaestor L. Caesar. In the evening he bathed and supped as 
usual with his friends, discussing philosophical questions; 
and having walked after supper he retired to his room, 
where, it is said, he read over Plato's dialogue named 
Phaedo, which treats of a future state and the immortality of 
the soul, and it is added slept soundly. Toward morning he 
stabbed himself with his sword : the sound of his fall being 
heard, his friends ran to the room, and his surgeon went to 
37* 



438 HISTORY OF ROME. ^ 

bind up the wound ; but he thrust him from him, tore it 
open, and instantly expired. 

Thus died M. Porcius Cato, in the forty-eighth year of his 
age, a man possessed of many noble and estimable qualities, 
but joined with some defects, among which his vanity and 
his obstinacy were conspicuous. He was certainly patriotic, 
and was for maintaining the constitution; but it may be 
doubted if personal hatred to Csesar was not tfie secret 
source of many of his apparently most patriotic actions. 
His politics were of too Utopian a cast ever to be really 
useful ; for such is our nature that the politician must know 
how to yield to circumstances if he would do good. We 
may therefore admire, but should never think of imitating, 
the character of Cato. 

Caesar soon arrived at Utica, where he granted their lives 
to L. Caesar and the other Romans ; as for the three hun- 
dred, he said he would content himself with confiscating 
their properties for their crime in supplying Varus and 
Scipio with money ; he however most graciously let them 
off for a sum of two hundred millions of sesterces, to be 
, paid in the course of six years to the republic — that is, to 
himself 

King Juba had set out with Petreius for his town of 
Zama ; he found the gates closed against him, and he and 
his companion, seeing no hopes, agreed to kill one another 
in a single combat ; Petreius died at once, Juba was obliged 
to employ the hand of a slave. Afranius and Faustus Sulla 
were met and made prisoners in Mauritania, as they, were 
making for Spain with the cavalry from Utica, by Sitius, a 
Roman condottiere who had declared for Caesar, and Caesar 
put them and L. Caesar to death. Scipio, on his way to 
Spain, being obliged to put into the port of Hippo, where 
Sitius' freebooting squadron lay, was attacked by it. Hav- 
ing seen most of his vessels sink, he stabbed himself, and 
when one of Sitius' soldiers on boarding asked where was 
the general, he calmly replied, " The general is safe." 
Caesar went from Utica to Zama, where he sold the property 
of king Juba, and seized that of the Romans who resided 
there. He converted the kingdom into a province, giving 
Cirta to Sitius. On his return to Utica he seized and sold 
the property of all who had been centurions under Juba 
and Petreius, and he fined all the towns in proportion to 
their means; he, however, did not allow his soldiers to pil- 
lage any of them. He then set sail^ homewards, leaving 



Cesar's triumphs. 439 

C. Sallustius as proconsul to govern the new province of Nu- 
midia, by wliom it was plundered in a merciless manner.* 

On Ccesar's arrival in Rome honors of every kind were 
decreed to him by his obsequious senate. They had already 
resolved that forty days should be devoted to the celebration 
of his African victory ; that he shouW be dictator for ten 
years, inspector of morals for three ; that his chariot should 
be placed on the Capitol opposite the statue of Jupiter, and 
his statue standing on a brazen figure of the world with the 
inscription " Caesar the semigod." Having addressed the 
senate and the people, and assured them of his clemency and 
regard for the republic, he prepared to celebrate his tri- 
umphs for his various conquests ; and in one month he tri- 
umphed four times, the first triumph being for Gaul, the 
second for Ptolemaeus of Egypt, the third for Pharnaces 
of Pontus, and the fourth for Juba of Numidia. The first 
was the most splendid ; but as the procession went along 
the Velabrum the axle of the triumphal car broke, and in 
consequence of the delay he could not ascend the Capitol 
till dark, when forty elephants, ranged on his right and left, 
bore lights, and he went up the steps on his knees. In the 
second triumph were seen pictures of the deaths of Pothinus 
and Achillas, and the Pharos on fire ; the third displayed a 
tablet with Veni, vidi, vici ! on it. The money borne in 
triumph is said to have amounted to 65,000 talents, and the 
gold crowns to have been 2822 in number, and to have 
weighed 2414 pounds. He feasted the people at 22,000 
tables placed in the streets ; and to 150,000 citizens he gave 
ten pecks of corn, ten pounds of oil, and 400 sesterces 
apiece. There were public games of all kinds, sham-battles, 
hunting of wild beasts, horse and chariot races, the Trojan 
game, etc. To reward his veterans he gave them each 
24,000 sesterces, double the sum to the centurions, the 
quadruple to the tribunes ; and he assigned them lands, but 
not in continuous tracts, in order that present possessors 
might not be disturbed. 

CfEsar now turned his thoughts to legislation. He con- 
fined the judicial power to the senators and knights ; he 
reduced by a census the number of citizens who received 
cqrn to about one half; he sent eighty thousand citizens 
away as colonists ; he enacted that no freeman under twenty 

* Dion, xliii. 9. He was prosecuted for extortion the next year, but 
Caesar saved him ; hence his apologists say that it was for Csesar, not 
for himself, that he had pillaged the province. 



440 HISTORY OF ROME. 

or over forty years of age should be more than three years 
out of Italy, and no senator's son at all, unless in the retinue 
of a magistrate ; that all graziers on the public lands should 
not have less than a third of their shepherds freemen. He 
granted the freedom of the city to all physicians and pro- 
fessors of the liberal arts ; he made or renewed various 
sumptuary laws ; and he encouraged marriage, and gave 
rewards to those who had many children. 

As a means of securing his power he abolished all the 
clubs and unions except the ancient ones ; for however use- 
ful they might have formerly proved in forwarding his own 
views, he knew them to be totally incompatible with all 
regular government. Judging also by his own experience, 
he enacted that no prsetor should hold a province for more 
than one year, no consul for more than two. He further 
reserved to himself the appointment of one half of those who 
were to be elected to offices in the state, and at the approach 
of the elections he always notified to the people whom he 
would have chosen.* 

It was at this time also that Csesar made his celebrated 
reformation of the calendar. The Roman year had been 
the lunar one of 354 days, and it was kept in accordance 
with the solar year by intercalating months in every second 
and fourth year. The pontiffs were charged with this of- 
fice ; but they exercised it, it is said, in an arbitrary manner, 
from motives of partiality, and the year was now more than 
two months in arrear. Cfesar therefore added 67 days be- 
tween November and December of this year, which with the 
intercalary month of 23 days made an entire addition of 90 
days; and he divided the year into months of 30 and 31 days, 
directing a day to be intercalated every fourth year, to keep 
it even with the course of the sun. His agent in this change 
was an Alexandrian named Sosigenes. 

Towards the end of the year Caesar was obliged to return 
to Spain, where the sons of Pompeius with Labienus and 
Varus had collected a force of eleven lecrions, and had driven 
Trebonius, who commanded there, out of Bsetica. In tw^enty- 
seven days he travelled from Rome to the neighborhood of 
Corduba, and after various movements the two armies met 
(March 17th, 707) on the plain of Munda, Cn. Pompeius, 
who commanded in chief, had the advantage in position and 

^ The following was the form of his congi d'tlire : " Caesar, dictator, 
illi tribui : Commendo tibi ilium et ilium, ut vestro sufFragio suam dig- 
nitatem teneant." (Suet. Jul. Caes. 41.) 



SECOND SPANISH WAR. 441 

numbers, and he was so near gaining the victory, that CiEsar, 
it is said, was about to put an end to himself. He alighted 
from his horse, took a shield, and advancing before his men 
declared that he would never retire. This action excited 
them to renewed exertions ; and just then a Moorish prince 
in Caesar's army having fallen on Pompeius' camp, Labienus 
sent five cohorts to protect it ; Csesar cried aloud that the 
enemy was flying ; this roused the courage of one side and 
excited the fears of the other, and after a severe contest 
victory remained with Caesar. Labienus, Varus, and 30,000 
men, among whom were 3000 knights, lay slain on the side 
of Pompeius ; the victors had 1000 killed and 500 wounded. 
Caesar declared that in his other battles he had foucrht for 
victory, in this for his very life : it was the last conflict of the 
Civil War. Cn. Pompeius fled to Carteia, where his fleet 
lay ; but finding the pejople inclined to Caesar, he put to sea 
with thirty ships. Didius, who commanded Caesar's fleet at 
Gades, pursued him, and when he was obliged to land for 
water attacked and burned several of his ships. Pompeius, 
who was wounded, fled from one place to another : and 
being found in a cavern in which he had taken shelter, he 
was put to death, and his head, like his father's, brought to 
Caesar. Sex. Pompeius, who commanded in Corduba, fled 
to the mountains of Celtiberia. Munda was taken after a 
siege of three weeks; Corduba, Hispalis, (Seville,) Gades, 
and the other towns opened their gates. Caesar, in order to 
raise money, heavily fined some places, sold privileges to 
others, and even plundered the temple of Hercules at Gades ; 
and having thus collected all the money he could, he set out 
on his return to Rome, leaving C. Asinius Pollio as legate in 
Spain. 

Caesar celebrated his triumph on the 1st of October, but 
though a magnificent it was a melancholy sight to the peo- 
ple, who regarded it as a triumph over themselves. The 
senate however was never weary of heaping honors on him. 
He was made perpetual dictator and inspector of morals, 
given the prcBnonien of Imperator, and the cognomen of Fa- 
ther of his Country ; his statue was placed among those of 
the kings on the Capitol and in all the temples and towns ; it 
was carried with those of the gods at the Circensian games, 
and there was a. pulvinar, or state-couch, for it as for theirs ; 
he had a flamen and Luperci like Quirinus, and the month 
Q,uinctiiis was named Julius after him. He was allowed to 
wear a laurel crown constantly, to have a golden seat in the 

D D D 



442 HISTORY OF ROME. 

senate-house and Forum, etc. Friends and enemies con- 
curred in heaping these honors on him, the former out of 
zeal, the latter it is said in the hope of making him incur 
the hatred of the people. 

Insatiate of fame and impatient of repose, Caesar had al- 
ready resolved on a war with the Parthians, and he now sent 
his legions before him into Macedonia. Meantime he was 
forming various magnificent projects for his own glory and 
the benefit of the people. He proposed to rebuild Carthage 
and Corinth and several Italian towns, to cut across the 
isthmus of Corinth, to drain the Pomptine marshes, to let off 
the Fucine lake, to dig a new bed for the Tiber from Rome 
to the sea, to form a large port at Ostia, to make a causeway 
over the Apennines to the Adriatic. He employed the 
learned Varro to collect books for a public library, and he 
proposed reducing the mass of the Roman laws to a mod- 
erate compass. 

It was thus that Caesar meditated improving the empire 
which he had acquired by his sword; he moreover proclaimed 
an amnesty, replaced the statues of Sulla and Pompeius 
which had been thrown down, and dismissing his guards 
went attended only by lictors. But, in the intoxication of 
power he did not sufficiently spare the feelings and preju- 
dices of those over whom he ruled. He introduced Gauls 
into the senate, he set his slaves over the mint and the revenue, 
he did as he pleased with all the high offices ; he would use 
such language as this, " There is no republic ; Sulla was an 
idiot to lay down the dictatorship. Men should speak more 
respectfully to me, and consider my word to be law." When 
the whole senate waited on him one day with a decree in his 
honor, he did not even deign to rise from his seat to receive 
them. Finally, like Cromwell, not content with the solid 
power of a king, he longed, it is said, for the empty title, 
and various modes of feeling the pulse of the people on this 
subject were employed. As he was returning (708) from 
keeping the Latin Holidays on the Alban Mount, some voices 
in the crowd called him King, and some one placed a diadem 
and a crown of laurel on one of his statues. Seeing that 
the people was not pleased, he replied, " I am Caesar, not 
king ; " but he deprived of their office two of the tribunes 
when they imprisoned the man who had crowned his statues 
A few days after, on the festival of the Lupercalia, (Feb. 15,) 
Antonius, then his colleague in the consulate and one of the 
new Luperci, ran up to him as he was seated in state on the 



CONSPIRACY AGAINST CiESAR. 443 

Rostra and placed a diadem on his head ; a few hired voices 
applauded : Cassar rejected it, and a general shout of applause 
ensued ; the offer was repeated with the same effect. Ca3sar 
then rose, desiring the diadem to be placed on the statue of 
Jupiter as the only king of the Romans. It was also rumored 
that it was found in the Sibylline books that the Parthians 
could only be conquered by a king, and that therefore Cotta, 
one of the keepers of them, was to propose making Caesar 
king. 

But at this very time there was a conspiracy formed to 
deprive Ceesar of life and empire. The members of it were 
sixty in number, some of them his adherents, others those 
who had fought against him, to whom he had given their lives, 
and even promoted them to honors. Among the latter were C 
Cassius and M. Junius Brutus. Of these Cassius had, as we 
have seen, been Crassus' legate in the Parthian war ; he had 
commanded a division of Pompeius' fleet, and meeting Caesar 
on his way to Egypt had been pardoned by him, and was 
now one of the city praetors. He was a man of very con- 
siderable talent, but of rather a harsh and stern temper. 
Brutus was the nephew of Cato, to whose daughter he was 
now married, having divorced his former wife Claudia for 
that purpose. After the battle of Pharsalia he fled to 
Larissa, whence he sent his submission to Caesar, who joy- 
fully received him, and when he was going to Africa set him 
over Cisalpine Gaul, and had now made him one of the city 
praetors. His sister Junia was the wife of Cassius. A 
mistaken sense of patriotism may have been, and probably 
was, the motive which actuated these and some others ; * and 
even Caesar's own partisans who shared in the conspiracy, 
such as D. Brutus and Trebonius, may have acted from the 
same motives, for though they fought for Caesar against 
Pompeius, it does not follow that they approved of the* 
overthrow of the constitution. C. and P. Servilius Casca, 
Tillius Cimber, and Minucius Basilus, also of the Caesarian 
party, were among the conspirators. Cn. Domitius and 
Q,. Ligarius were Pompeians who engaged in the plot. 

Cassius is said to have originally contrived the plot; those 
to whom he communicated it advised him strongly to 
engage Brutus in it if possible on account of his name and 
influence, and Brutus when sounded readily entered into it. 

* In the case of Brutus, no one who reads his letters to Cicero and 
Atticus can doubt of it. How he rises in moral dignity in these letters 
over Cicero ! 



444 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Brutus was further urged, it is said, by hints such as these ; 
on his tribunal he found written, " Brutus, dost thou sleep 1 " 
and " Thou art not a true Brutus!" and on the statue of 
the elder Brutus was written, " Would there were a Brutus 
now ! " Knowing the timidity of Cicero's character, and cer- 
tain of his support when the deed was done, the conspira- 
tors did not make him privy to their design ; but it is said 
they had had some thoughts of admitting Antonius, who was 
offended with Csesar for having made him pay for Pompeius' 
property which he had bought, but Trebonius had diverted 
them from it. It was then warmly debated among them 
whether they should not kill Antonius and Lepidus along 
with Caesar, but the two Brutuses declaring strongly against 
such an act as unjust and impolitic, it was imprudently given 
up. The place and time of performing the deed were also 
matter of debate, as they were resolved that this act of 
public justice, as they deemed it, should be done in the face 
of day : some proposed the Field of Mars, others the Via 
Sacra or the entrance of the theatre ; but a& the senate were 
to meet in the Curia of Pompeius on the ides of March, that 
place and day were finally fixed on. It is said moreover 
that Csesar knew that there was a conspiracy against him, 
but that he disdained to take any precautions, saying that 
he would rather die at once by treachery than live in fear 
of it ; that he "had lived long enough, and that the state 
would be a greater loser than he by his death. 

On the morning of the ides (15th) of March, Brutus and 
Cassius sat calmly in the Forum to administer justice, with 
daggers concealed under their gowns. Caesar, who felt him- 
self indisposed, and whose wife is said to have had ominous 
dreams, was thinking of not going to the senate, but D. 
Brutus urging him he ascended his litter and set out : on 
*the way, we are told, Artemidorus, a Greek philosopher, 
handed him a paper with an account ot the plot, desiring 
him to read it immediately ; but he went in with the paper 
in his hand.* Popillius Lsenas, who a little before had 
intimated to Brutus and Cassius his knowledge of the plot, 
went up and spoke earnestly to him ; the conspirators, who 
did not hear what he said, were in alarm, and laid their 
hands on their daggers. At length Popillius retired, and Cae- 
sar advanced and took his seat; the conspirators gathered 

* It is also said that Spurinna, an aruspex, had warned him to beware 
of the ides of March j and now seeing him he said, '' Well, the ides of 
March are come." " Yes, but they are not past ! " replied Spurinna. 



DEATH AND CHARACTER OF C^SAR. 445 

round him ; Cimbet began to plead for his brother who was 
in exile, the others joined earnestly in the suit : Csesar was 
annoyed at their importunity ; Cimber then gave the ap- 
pointed signal by seizing his gown and pulling it off his 
shoulder. ** This is violence," cried Caesar. Casca instantly 
stabbed him under the throat. Caesar rose, ran his writing- 
style into Casca's arm, and rushed forward ; but another and 
another struck him ; then despairing of life he thought only 
of dying with dignity, and wrapping his gown around him, 
he fell, pierced by three-and-twenty wounds, at the foot of 
Pompeius' statue.* Brutus then waving his bloody dagger 
called aloud on Cicero, and congratulated him on the recov- 
ery of the public liberty. t He was going to address the 
assembly, but the senators fled out of the house in dismay. 
Thus perished, in his fifty-sixth year, C. Julius Caesar, 
the greatest man Rome, we would almost say the world, 
ever beheld. Equally the general, the statesman, the ora- 
tor, and the man of letters and taste, | he must have shone 
in any station and under any form of society. His couracre 
was not merely physical, it was moral ; his eloquence was 
simple and masculine ; his taste pure and elegant. He was 
clement, generous, and magnanimous ; but he was also 
insatiably ambitious : and though not cruel, (as no really 
great man is,) he could shed torrents of blood without re- 
morse when he had any object to gain; and though he 
enforced the laws when he had the supreme power, he had 
trampled on them with contempt when they stood in his 
way. To say that Csesar overthrew the liberties of his 
country, unless we dignify anarchy with the name of liberty, 
we hold to be incorrect ; and had his motive been the love 
of Rome, and not the gratification of his own ambition, we 
might even feel disposed to praise him. But he cared not 
for his country ; the love of fame alone actuated him ; in- 
stead of staying in Rome, and seeking to promote the hap- 
piness of those who were become his subjects, he was now 

* Some writers say that when Brutus struck, Cssar cried out in 
Greek, " And thou, my son ! " Ceesar, it is well known, had an in- 
trio-ue with Servilia, Brutus' mother, but he was only iifteen years 
older than Brutus, and so could not well have been his father. 

t Cic. Phil. ii. 12. 

t His solicitude about his dress and his personal appearance was a 
curious trait in Csesar's character. No honor that was decreed him 
gave him more pleasure than that of wearing a laurel wreath, as it 
helped to conceal his baldness. Suet. Jul. Cses. 45. 
38 



446 HISTORY OF ROME. 

on the point of running, in imitation of Alexander, to at- 
tempt the conquest of the East, l-eaving the supreme power 
at Rome in the hands of such men as Antonius and Dola- 
bella. According to the old Valerian law,* Caesar was 
legally slain : we are not justified in ascribing any but pa- 
triotic motives to most of the conspirators : but if his assas- 
sination was an act of justice, according to the ideas of those 
times, never was there a more useless, a more pernicious 
act of justice performed. 



CHAPTER Xll.t 

AFFAIRS AT ROME AFTER C^ESAR's DEATH. HIS FUNERAL. 

CONDUCT OF ANTONIUS. OCTAVIUS AT ROME. — QUARREL 

BETWEEN HIM AND ANTONIUS. MUTINENSIAN W^AR. 

C^SAR MADE CONSUL. THE TRIUMVIRATE AND PROSCRIP- 
TION. DEATH OF CICERO. HIS CHARACTER. ACTS OF 

THE TRIUMVIRS. WAR WITH BRUTUS AND CASSIUS. 

BATTLE OF PHILIPPI, DEATH OF BRUTUS AND CASSIUS. 

ANTONIUS AND CLEOPATRA. CJ^SAr's DISTRIBUTION OF 

LANDS. PERUSIAN WAR. ^ RETURN OF ANTONIUS TO ITALY. 

WAR WITH SEX. POMPEIUS. PARTHIAN WAR. RUP- 
TURE BETWEEN C^SAR AND ANTONIUS. BATTLE OF ACTI- 

UM. LAST EFFORTS OF ANTONIUS. DEATH OF ANTONIUS 

AND CLEOPATRA. SOLE DOMINION OF CJaSAR. CON- 
CLUSION. 

The terror of the senate at the assassination of Caesar was 
shared by the people, and the conspirators not knowing how 
they might finally act, and aware of the great number of 
soldiers that were in and about the city, deemed it their 
safest course to retire to the Capitol, whither several of the 
senate and the nobility repaired to them. The dead body 
of Caesar, which lay in the senate-house, was placed in his 
litter by three of his slaves and taken home. Antonius 
fled and concealed himself; Lepidus retired to the troops 

* See above, p. 33. 

t Dion, xlv.-li. Appian, B. C. iii-v. Veil. Pat. ii. 59-89. Plut 
Cicero, Brutus, Antonius. 



AFFAIRS AT ROME AFTER C-ESAr's DEATH. 447 

which he had in the island of the Tiber,* and transported 
them without delay over to the Field of Mars. 

The next day passed in conferences and negotiations. 
Brutus and Cassius came down and harangued the people 
in the Forum, and were heard with respect; but when the 
praetor L.Cornelius Cinna began to accuse Coesar, the people 
showed such angef that the conspirators deemed it prudent 
to return to the Capitol ; and Brutus, expecting to be be- 
sieged, made those who had joined them there retire, not 
to share in the danger. On the third day (the 17th) Anto- 
nius,t as consul, assembled the senate in the temple of 
Earth, (Tellus,) to make the final arrangements with the 
conspirators. Cicero proposed an amnesty, like that at 
Athens in the time of the Thirty ; to which all agreed, An- 
tonius moved that the conspirators should be invited to join 
them, and he sent his son to the Capitol as a hostage for 
their security. They came down, and Cassius supped that 
evening with Antonius, Brutus with Lepidus. Antonius 
also moved that all Caesar's acts should be confirmed ; this 
was opposed ; but on his assurance that it should only ex- 
tend to those acts which were public and known, that only 
one exile was to be restored, and no immunities granted to 
any towns or countries, it was passed, with a restriction 
that no grant which was to take place after the ides of March 
should be valid. It was finally resolved that Caesar's fune- 
ral should be solemnized at the public expense, a measure 
to which Brutus had agreed, though Cassius opposed it; 
and Cicero's prudent friend, T. Pomponius Atticus, had de- 

* He was preparing to set out with them for Spain, of wjnich Caesar 
had given him the government. 

t As Antonius becomes now an actor of so much importance, we 
will sketch his previous history. He was grandson of the great orator, 
(see p. 343,) and son of the Antonius who commanded against tlie 
pirates, (p. 360, 361.) In his youth he was riotous and debauched, and 
squandered his patrimony before he assumed the toga. His step-father 
was Catihna's associate Lentulus ; after whose death he joined Clodius^ 
and shared in the violence of his tribunate. He then went abroad, and 
became commander of the horse under Gabinius in Syria, and had his 
part in the restoration of Ptolemseus, (p. 431.) On his return, his debts 
driving him from Rome, he went to Gaul to Ccesar, who aided him 
with his money and credit in his suit for the qua3storship ; and Cicero, 
to oblige Csesar, exerted himself so strenuously in his favor, that An- 
tonius attributed his success to him, and, to prove his gratitude, attempted 
to kill Clodius in the Forum. As soon as he was made quaestor, he went 
back to Caesar, without waiting for an appointment from the senate ; 
he afterwards returned, and was chosen one of the tribunes ; and we 
have seen how useful he proved to Cassar, 



448 HISTORY OF ROME. 

clared that if there was a public funeral all was lost. At 
this time also Cicero's son-in-law, P. Dolabella, whom Cae- 
sar had nominated to be consul in his place, entered of him- 
self on the office ; and Lepidus took in like manner the high 
priesthood which Ceesar had held. The following day the 
thanks of the senate were given to Antonius for his prudent 
conduct, and provinces decreed to the principal conspirators. 

Caesar's will was now opened and read at the house of 
Antonius, and it was found that he had adopted and made 
his principal heir C. Octavius, the grandson of his sister ; that 
he had bequeathed the citizens 300 sesterces apiece, and 
left them his gardens near the Tiber. The funeral then 
took place. A small temple adorned with gold was raised 
in front of the Rostra, and his body placed in it on an ivory 
couch, the robe in which he had died being hung over it ; 
the pyre meantime was formed in the Field of Mars, whither 
all who chose were directed to carry their spices and perfumes 
to be burnt on it. Antonius then ascended the Rostra ; he 
directed the decrees of the senate in Caesar's honor to be 
read, and the oath taken by the senators not only not to 
make any attempt on his life, but to defend it at the hazard 
of their own. He then briefly addressed the people.* The 
magistrates and those who had borne office under Caesar 
took up the body to carry it to the Field of Mars ; but the 
rabble, who had been excited by verses distributed among 
them, would not allow them to proceed, some insisting that 
it should be burnt in the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, 
others in the curia of Pompeius, in which he was slain. 
Suddenly two armed soldiers advanced with lighted tapers 
and set fire to the bier ; the crowd broke up all the seats and 
got brushwood and every thing else that came to hand to 
feed the flames ; the musicians and players threw on them 
their dresses, the veterans their arms, the women their own 
and their children's ornaments to honor Caesar. The mob 
then attempted to set fire to the houses of the conspirators, 
and they murdered C. Helvius Cinna, a tribune, and one of 
Caesar's friends, mistaking him for his namesake the praetor, 
and carried his head about on a spear. 

The conspirators now found it advisable to leave Rome ; 
but Antonius, not feeling himself yet strong enough to act 
as he intended, still wore the mask of moderation. He 

* Suetonius, Jul. Caesar, 84. Others say he displayed Caesar's 
bloody robe and excited the people to vengeance ; but this cannot have 
been, as it was his policy now to keep fair with the conspirators. " 



CONDUCT OF ANTONIUS. 449 

spoke highly of Brutus and Cassius, obtained leave for them, 
^hough prsetors, to stay away from the city, and had a de- 
cree passed abolishing forever the name and office of dic- 
tator. As the mob had erected an altar with a pillar on the 
spot where they had burnt Cnesar's body and offered sacri- 
fices on it, he seized and put their ringleader to death ; and 
Dolabella afterwards demolished the pillar and altar, and 
executed several of the most riotous of the mob. 

Antonius, having made a tour through Italy to collect the 
veterans and draw them toward Rome, assembled the senate 
on the 1st of June ; when as none ventured to appear but 
his own partisans, he had what decrees he pleased passed. 
Pretending fear on account of the decrees in favor of the 
republic, he asked for a guard to protect him, and when it 
was granted, he surrounded himself with six thousand vet- 
erans. He then had the execution of Caesar's acts com- 
mitted to the consuls, and as he had Caesar's papers and his 
secretary Faberius in his hands he now could forge and do 
as he pleased. He therefore recalled exiles, granted immu- 
nities to whom he chose and who could pay for them,* and 
thus amassed a large quantity of money. Calpurnia, Cae- 
sar's wife, had, in her first terror, given up to him all the^ 
ready money that Caesar had left behind him, amounting to 
100,000,000 sesterces, and he seized the public treasure of 
700,000,000 sesterces which Caesar had placed in the tem- 
ple of Ops. He thus had been enabled to pay off" his own 
debts of 40,000,000 sesterces, purchase over his colleague 
Dolabella, and gain the soldiery to his side. As Sex. Pom- 
peius was again in arms, Antonius and Lepidus, aware of 
the annoyance he might give them, had a decree passed 
restoring him to his estates t and honors, and giving him 
the command at sea with as full powers as his father had 
enjoyed. 

The young C. Octavius, a youth of nineteen years of age, 
was at Apollonia pursuing his studies at the time of Caesar's 
death : the officers of the troops about there waited on him 
with a tender of their services, and some of his friends ad- 



* Though Cajsar hated no man more than Deiotarus, Antonius re- 
stored hun his dominions, in compliance, as he said, with the will of 
Caesar. The price paid by the king was 10.000,000 sesterces : the bar- 
gain was made by his agents with Fulvia the wife of Antonius. 

t It may give some idea of the wealth of the Roman nobles to know 
that Pompeius' property (independent of his plate and jewels) was 
valued at 700,000,000 sesterces, or £5,651,037 of our money. 
38 * E E E 



450 HISTORY OF ROME. 

vised him to accept them ; but this course did not suit his 
naturally cautious temper, and he only said that he would 
go to Rome and claim his uncle's estates. In the present 
posture of affairs even this course seemed too hazardous to 
many of his friends, and his mother Atia and her husband L. 
Marcius Philippus wrote to dissuade him from it. He how- 
ever persisted, and on his landing at Brundisium, the vete- 
rans flocked to him complaining of Antonius' tardiness to 
avenge the death of Csesar. He thence proceeded to join 
his mother at Cumas, and there he was introduced to Cicero, 
whom he assured that he would be always governed by his 
advice. Octavius then set out for Rome ; when he came 
near the city crowds of Caesar's friends met him and attended 
him on his entrance. Next day, having had his claim duly 
registered, he went to M. Antonius and demanded posses- 
sion of his uncle's money and assets, that he might pay the 
legacies. Antonius made a brief reply, telling him he was 
young and did not know what he was about ; he impeded 
him in getting his adoption confirmed by the curies ; and 
further, when Octavius, though a patrician, sought the 
tribunate vacant by the murder of Helvius Cinna, Antonius 
also opposed him. 

Octavius, (whom we shall henceforth call Csesar,*) seeing 
he had no hopes of Antonius, turned to the senate and peo- 
ple ; the former seemed disposed to favor him against An- 
tonius, and he easily won the latter by a promise of even 
more money than Caesar had left them in his will, and of 
treating them w^ith splendid shows. To perform these prom- 
ises he had to sell his own estate and his succession to 
his uncle's, and even those of his mother and his father-in- 
law, who now supported him heartily. 

Brutus and Cassius soon after left Italy, regarding their 
cause there as lost, and the chief hope of the republicans 
lay in the increasing coolness between C.^esar and Antonius. 
The latter did all in. his power to gain the veterans ; he 
estranged himself more and more from the republican party, 
which therefore looked to his rival, who, it is said, formed 
a design against his life, and sent some slaves to his house 
to assassinate him.t They both began to make preparations 



* By the rule of adoption, his name now became C. Julius Caesar 
Octavicinus. It is quite an error to call him henceforth Octavius ; we 
might as well call the younger Africdnus iEmilius. 

t Suet. Octav. 10. 



QUARREL BETWEEN OCTAVIUS AND ANTONIUS. 451 

for war, and Antonius in the beginning of October set out 
for Bruudisium to meet four legions which he had recalled 
from Macedonia. Caesar sent his agents to try to purchase 
the fidelity of these legions ; he himself went to solicit the 
veterans settled about Capua, and as he gave 500 denars 
a man, a number of them joined him. Antonius was but 
coolly received by the soldiers, and when he offered them 
100 denars each, they left his tribunal with contempt. In 
a rage he summoned the centurions whom he suspected to 
his quarters, and had them massacred in the presence of 
•himself and his wife Fulvia. Caesar's agents took advantage 
of this to gain over the soldiers, and but one of the legions 
could be induced to follow Antonius to Rome ; the other 
three marched along the coast without declaring for either 
side. At Rome Antonius published several edicts in abuse 
of Ceesar, Cicero, and others, and he had summoned the 
senate with the intention of having Caesar declared a public 
enemy ; but hearing that the three legions had declared for 
him, he left Rome in haste, and putting himself at the head 
of his troops set out for Cisalpine Gaul, which, though the 
province of D. Brutus, he had made the people decree to 
himself without asking the consent of the senate. 

Rome being now free from the presence of Antonius' 
troops, Cicero ventured to return to it ; and having received 
an assurance that Caesar would be a friend to Brutus, and 
seen that he allowed Casca, who had given the dictator the 
first blow, to enter on the tribunate to which he had been 
elected, he resolved to keep no measures with Antonius ; 
both in the senate and to the people he inveighed against 
him, extolling Caesar and D. Brutus, and calling on the 
senate to act with vigor in the defence of the republic* 
The remainder of the year was spent in making prepara- 
tions for war against Antonius, who was now actually be- 
sieging D. Brutus in Mutina. Caesar, with the approbation 
of Cicero, who had procured him the title of propraetor, 
marched after Antonius to watch his movements. 

On the first of January (709) the new consuls, A. Hir- 
tius and C. Vibius Pansa, entered on their office ; and in 
the senate, in spite of the eloquence of Cicero, the motion 
of Q,. Fufius Calenus to send an embassy to Antonius was 
carried, after a debate of three days. Three consulars, Sex. 

* The speeches, fourteen in number, delivered by Cicero against 
Antonius are called Philippics, after those of Demosthenes. 



452 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Sulpicius, L. Piso, and L. Philippus were sent. Meantime 
the levies went on with great spirit, and an army under 
Hirtius took the field against Antonius. The embassy hav- 
ing been detained by the iUness and death of Sulpicius, did 
not return till the beginning of February, when the senate 
was informed that Antonius refused obedience unless they 
would confirm all the acts of his consulate, give lands 
and rewards to all his troops, and to himself the govern- 
ment of Transalpine Gaul for five years, with six legions. 
On the motion of Cicero, Antonius was then in effect, though 
not in words, declared a public enemy, and the people were 
ordered to assume the sagum, or military habit. As Brutus 
was closely pressed in Mutina, attempts were made in the 
senate to have the negotiations with Antonius renewed, but 
they were defeated by the forcible eloquence of Cicero; and 
Pansa at length set out about the middle of March to attempt 
the relief of Brutus. 

When Antonius heard of Pansa's approach he secretly 
drew out his best troops to attack him before he should join 
Hirtius. On the loth of April, the day that Pansa was to 
enter Hirtius' camp, he found the horse and light troops of 
Antonius, who kept his legions out of view in an adjacent 
village, prepared to oppose him. A part of his troops 
charged them without waiting for orders; Antonius brought 
out his legions; the action became brisk and general; and 
Pansa's troops were finally driven to their camp, which Anto- 
nius vainly attempted to storm ; and as he was returning he 
was met by Hirtius and defeated with great loss, and another 
body of .his troops, which attacked Hirtius' camp, was driven 
off by Caesar, who commanded there. Three or four days 
after, Hirtius and Caesar made a vigorous attack on the camp 
of Antonius, who drew out his legions and gave them battle ; 
in the heat of the action Brutus made a sally from the town. 
Hirtius forced his way into the camp, but was slain near the 
pr(Etormm ; Caesar however completed the victory, and An- 
tonius fled with his cavalry toward the Alps. 

The consul Pansa, who had been severely wounded in the 
first engagement, died the next day at Bononia, (Bologna,) 
whither he had been conveyed. The deaths of the two consuls 
happened so very opportunely for Caesar, that he was accused, 
though certainly without reason, of having caused them.* He 
was now at the head of nearly the entire army, for the vete- 

* Suet. Octav. 11. 



CJESAR MADE CONSUL. 453 

rans would not serve under Brutus, who was thus unable to 
pursue Antonius; and as Caesar, having other views, would 
not follow him, he was able to form a junction with his legate 
P. Ventidius, who was bringing him three legions, and to 
effect his retreat over the Alps. At Rome, on the motion of 
Cicero, all kinds of honors were lavished on the slain and 
living generals; and, among the rest, the lesser triumph, 
named ovation, was decreed to Caesar. 

There were in this time two Roman armies in Gaul, the 
one commanded by Lepidus, who had stopped there on his 
way to Spain, the other by L. Munatius Plancus, the con- 
sul elect. The former, though he had sent reiterated assur- 
ances of fidelity to the senate, joined Antonius when he came 
to the vicinity of his camp: the latter united his forces with 
those of D. Brutus; but when he found that Asinius Pollio 
had led two legions out of Spain to the aid of the rebels (for 
Lepidus had been also declared a public enemy) he took the 
same side, and even attempted to betray Brutus to them. 
Brutus endeavored to make his escape to M. Brutus, who 
was in Macedonia, but he was betrayed and taken and put to 
death by the soldiers whom Antonius had sent in pursuit 
of him. 

Caisar, not content with the honors decreed him, demand- 
ed, it is said, a triumph, and on its being refused began to 
think of a reconciliation with Antonius. Though but a youth 
Le then resolved to claim the consulate, and it is also said 
that he induced Cicero to approve of his project by flattering 
his self-love, holding out to him the prospect of becoming his 
colleague and his director. As however no one could be 
found to propose him, he sent a deputation of his officers to 
demand it. The senate hesitated ; the centurion Cornelius, 
throwing back his cloak, showed the hilt of his sword and 
said, " This will make him if you will not." Caesar himself 
soon appeared at the head of his troops ; two legions which 
were just arrived from Africa, and had been set to defend the 
Janiculan, went over to him ; no opposition could be made ; 
an assembly of the people chose him and his cousin Q,. Pe- 
dius consuls, and they entered on their office on the 19th of 
the month Sextilis. Caesar was now resolved to keep meas- 
ures no longer with the republican party. Pedius proposed 
a law for bringing to trial all concerned, directly or indi- 
rectly, in causing the dictator's death ; the conspirators were 
all impeached, and none of course appearing they were out- 
lawed. Sex. Pompeius, though he had not had the slightest 



454 HISTORY OF ROME. 

concern in the deed, was included in the sentence, as the 
object proposed was not to Avenge the death of the elder, 
but to establish the power of the younger Csesar, who for 
this purpose now distributed to the citizens the legacies left 
them by his uncle. 

Having settled the affairs of the city to his mind, Csesar 
set out with his troops to hold the personal interview, which 
had been long since arranged, with Lepidus and Antonius, 
who had passed the Alps for the purpose. The place of meet- 
ing was a small island in a stream named the Rhenus, (Reno,) 
about two miles from Bononia. Each encamped with five le- 
gions in view of the island, which Lepidus entered the first 
to see that all was safe; and on his giving the signal, Caesar 
and Antonius approached and passed over to it from the 
opposite banks by bridges, which they left guarded each by 
three hundred men. They first, it is said, searched each 
other to see that they had no concealed weapons, and then 
sat in conference during three days, the middle seat being 
given to Csesar as consul. It was agreed among them, that 
under the title of Triumvirs for settling the Republic they 
should jointly hold the supreme power for five years, appoint 
to all offices, and decide on all public affairs; that Csesar 
should have for his province Africa, Sicily, and the other 
islands, Lepidus Spain and Narbonese Gaul, and Antonius the 
two other Gauls both sides of the Alps; that Csesar and An- 
tonius, each with twenty legions, should prosecute the war 
against Brutus and Cassius, and Lepidus with three have 
charge of the city; that finally, at the end of the war, eight- 
een of the best and richest municipal towns and colonies * 
of Italy, with their lands, should be taken from their owners 
and given to their faithful soldiers. They then proceeded 
to the horrible act of drawing up a proscription list after the 
example of Sulla, which was to contain the names of their 
public and private en»emies,' and of those whose wealth exci- 
ted their cupidity. Antonius insisted on Cicero's being in- 
cluded ; Csesar is said to have shrunk from this deed, but 
after holding out for two days he at length gave him up, as 
did Lepidus his own brother Paulus, and Antonius his uncle 
L. Csesar. The list is said to have contained the names 
of 300 senators and 2000 knights. t Csesar as consul read to 



* Appian enumerates Capua, Rhegium, Venusia, Beneventum, Nu 
ceria, Ariminum, and Hipponium. 

t Appian B. C. iv. 5. Livy says 130, Florus 140 senators. 



THE TRIUMVIRATE AND PROSCRIPTION. 455 

the soldiers all the articles of their agreement but the pro- 
scription list; their joy was unbounded, and they insisted 
on a marriage between Caesar and Clodia, the daughter of 
Antonius' wife Fulvia by her first husband Clodius. 

The triumvirs having selected seventeen names of the most 
obnoxious persons, sent off some soldiers to murder them 
without delay. Four were met and slain at once, but the tu- 
mult made by the soldiers in searching after the others filled 
the city with such alarm that the consul Pedius had to run 
about the streets all night to quiet the people, and in the 
morning he published the names of the seventeen. He died 
the next day in consequence of his great exertions and unea- 
siness of mind. A few days after, the triumvirs arrived, and 
having had a law proposed by one of the tribunes for invest- 
ing them with their new office, entered on it on the 27th of 
November. They immediately published their proscriotion 
list, and the scenes of Sulla's days were renewed in all their 
horrors, and the vices and virtues of human nature had aofain 
full room for display. "The fidelity of the wives of the pro- 
scribed," says a historian,* " was exemplary, that of the 
freedmen middling, slaves showed some, sons none at all." 

M. Cicero, his brother and his nephew were among the 
first sought out. Cicero, who in reliance oh Caesar had 
feared no danger, was at his Tusculan villa when he heard 
that his name was in the fatal list. He set out with his brother 
and nephew for his villa at Astura, which was on the coast 
near Antium, intending to make their escape by sea ; but 
Q,. Cicero having no money returned to Rome with his son, 
thinking he could remain concealed there till he had pro- 
cured what he wanted ; they were however betrayed by their 
slaves and both put to death. M, Cicero got on board a vessel 
at Astura, and sailed as far as Circeii, where he landed. He 
was perplexed how to act, and whether he should go to Brutus, 
Cassius, or Pompeius : at times he did not wholly despair of 
Csesar ; at other times he thought of returning secretly to 
Rome, and entering Caesar's house kill himself on his hearth, 
and thus draw on him the vengeance of heaven ; death in fine 
he now regarded as his only refuge : t he however yielded 
to the entreaties of his slaves, and let them convey him by 
sea to his villa at Caieta; but he would go no further, de- 



* Veil. Pat. ii. 67. " So hard," he adds with respect to the sons, 
is the delay of a hope any how conceived ! " 
t Seneca, Suasor. 6. 



456 HISTORY OF ROME. 

Glaring that he would die in the country he so often had 
saved.* He went to bed and slept soundly, though a flock of 
crows, we are told, as if to warn him of his impending fate, 
made a continual fluttering and crying about the house. His 
slaves, apprehending danger, made him get up, and placing 
him in a litter carried him through the woods toward the sea. 
The soldiers soon arrived at the villa, and finding him gone 
pursued after him. When they came up, his slaves prepared 
to fight in his defence, but he forbade them, and stretching 
his neck out of the litter, and regarding the soldiers with an 
air of resolution which almost daunted them, bade them do 
their office and take what they wanted. They struck off" his 
head and hands, and C. Popillius Lsenas the tribune, who 
commanded the party, a man whom Cicero had formerly de- 
fended on a capital charge, took them and carried them to 
Antonius. The triumvir was sitting in the Forum when he 
arrived; Laenas held up the bloody spoils when he came in 
sight, and he forthwith received the honor of a crown and a 
large sum of money. The head and hands were placed on 
the Rostra, where the sight of them drew tears from many an 
eye, and awoke many a sigh in the bosoms of those who 
called to mind the eloquence with which he had so often from 
that place defended the laws and liberties of his country. 
Such was the end, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, of 
the greatest orator, the most accomplished writer that Rome 
ever possessed. In his private character Cicero was every 
way amiable, and a just and benevolent spirit pervades all 
his writings; as a magistrate, whether at Rome or in the 
provinces, few were so upright or incorruptible; it is only his 
political character that is stained wath blemishes. His vanity 
was insatiable, and any one who would minister to it could 
wield him at his pleasure; he had a cowardly dread of the ills 
of life, and lost all sense of dignity in his anxiety to escape 
them.t He wanted that firmness, that fixedness of purpose, 
without which no statesman can be great ; he was ever vacil- 
lating, and to gratify his ambition, which was inordinate, he 
could even be base.| Though Caesar had caused his banish- 

* Liv. in Senec. Suasor. 

I " We have too great a dread," says Brutus, '' of death, of exile, and 
of poverty. I'hese Cicero looks upon as the chief ills of life j and as 
long as he can find people who will grant him what he desires, who 
will respect and applaud him, he has no objection to slavery, provided 
it be an honorable one." 

t One could hardly believe, had we not his own words for it, (Ad 
Att. i. 2,) that he had thoughts of defending Catilina, though lie knew 



DEATH AND CHARACTER OF CICERO- 457 

ment he sought and obtained favors from him ; he flattered 
him grossly when in power, and yet he exulted at and applaud- 
ed his assassination. Cicero's patriotism had not the moral 
purity of that of Demosthenes ; we could believe that the lat- 
ter, provided he saw Athens great and flourishing, would have 
beeu content to have been one of her humblest citizens; to 
Cicero the republic was nothing if he was not the leading 
man in it, its animating spirit. To speak thus hardly of so 
great, so generally excellent a man is painful to us, but our 
regard for truth will not allow us to join in the unqualified 
eulogies which have been lavished on his memory. 

Numbers of the proscribed made their escape to Pompeius 
or to Brutus. Even Antonius showed some mercy; when 
Cicero's head was brought to him, he declared the proscrip- 
tion on his part at an end; he let his uncle escape, and he 
erased from the list the names of the learned Varro, and of 
Cicero's friend T. Pomponius Atticus, and some others; we 
are however assured that he and his spouse Fulvia set in gen- 
eral but little bounds to their appetite for blood and plunder. 
Lepidus saved his brother. Caesar, whom as having few per- 
sonal enemies we should have expected to have been the most 
moderate, is said to have acted with more cruelty than his 
colleagues ; but he was not actuated by revenge or the love of 
rapine, he went on the cool, deliberate principle of extermina- 
ting the aristocracy, and thus making room for his own pow- 
er. When at the end of the proscription Lepidus made in 
the senate a sort of apology for it, and held forth hopes of 
clemency in future, Caesar declared that he would not bind 
himself, but would still reserve the power of proscribing.* 

The triumvirs having satiated their vengeance next thought 
of raising money for the war. They had recourse to all 
modes of extortion ; they seized the treasures in the charge of 
the Vestals ; they laid a heavy tax on four hundred women of 
fortune, and then on all the citizens who had above a certain 
property. They appointed the magistrates for several years 
to come; and having made Lepidus and Plancus consuls, 
Cffisar and Antonius put themselves at the head of their army 
and crossed over to Epirus. 

We must now follow Brutus and Cassius. After their de- 



his character, and that his guilt was as clear as the sun at noon day, in 
the hopes of that villain joining forces with him in their joint suit for 
the consulate. 

** Sueton. Octav. 27. 

39 - F F F 



458 HISTORY OF ROME. 

parture from Italy they went first to Athens, where they were 
received with great honors, and the vainglorious people 
decreed them statues to stand beside those of Harmodius 
and Aristogiton, the fancied founders of Athenian freedom. 
Brutus collected all the troops he could ; * the three legions 
commanded by P. Vatinius went over to him ; Q. Hortensius 
the propraetor of Macedonia, delivered it up to him, and when 
C. Antonius, whom his brother had appointed to it, came out, 
he was defeated and made a prisoner; and Brutus thus re- 
mained master of Greece, Macedonia, and Illyricum. 

Cassius proceeded to Syria. Dolabella, for whom his 
colleague Antonius had obtained that government, had on 
his way through Asia treacherously seized and put to death 
with torture Trebonius, one of the conspirators, the governor 
of that province; for this the senate had declared him a public 
enemy; but while they were deliberating whom to send 
against him, Cassius went to Syria, where all the troops 
declared for him ; and Dolabella being besieged in Laodicea 
put an end to himself Being now at the head often legions, 
Cassius was preparing to invade Egypt, when he was sum- 
moned by Brutus to come to his aid against Antonius and 
CsBsar. They met at Smyrna, and Cassius being of opinion 
that they should first reduce the Rhodians and Lycians, who 
had refused to pay contributions, he himself attacked and 
plundered the former, while Brutus turned his arms against 
the latter, whose town of Xanthus he took and burned, after 
slaughtering the men, women, and children without distinc- 
tion. Having levied contributions in all quarters, they met 
at Sardes, and thence crossed over to the Chersonese. t As 
P. Decidius Saxa and C. Junius Norbanus, whom the trium- 
virs had sent forward with eight legions, occupied the pass 
leading into Macedonia, Brutus and Cassius sent a detach- 
ment, under the guidance of a Thracian prince, by a circui- 
tous route through the mountains ; at the sight of which the 
triumvirs' legates fell back to Amphipolis, and the republican 
generals then came and encamped on an eminence near the 
town of Philippi. 

* Cicero's son and the poet Horace, who were studying at Athens, 
took arms on this occasion and received commands from Brutus. 

t It is said that at this time, as Brutus was sitting up late one night 
reading in his tent, he beheld a strange and terrific figure standing by 
him. He asked who he was, and why he was come ; the phantom re- 
plied, '' I am thy evil genius ; thou wilt see me at Philippi ! " "I shall 
see thee then," said Brutus, and the figure vanished. This may be a 
fiction, but it is such a trick as fancy might have played. 



BATTLE OF PHILIPPI. 459 

Antonius, who was an active general when he chose to 
rouse himself, made all haste to save his legates, and on his 
arrival he encamped within a mile of the enemy. He was 
joined in a few days by Cassar, and their united force was 
nineteen legions and thirteen thousand horse ; the other army 
had the same number of legions and twenty thousand horse ; 
Antonius, as his army, being excluded from the sea, was in 
want of provisions, sought to bring on an action, which Cas- 
sius, aware of his motive, steadily refused. At length how- 
ever the impatience of his troops, or, as some say, of his 
officers and his colleague, obliged him to consent to give bat- 
tle. As Caesar was unwell, Antonius had the sole command of 
the other army, and he defeated the troops of Cassius which 
were opposed to him and took their camp ; but on the other 
side, Caesar's troops were routed by those of Brutus, and their 
camp was taken. Cassius having vainly tried to rally his 
men retired to an eminence, and seeing a body of horse 
coming toward him he sent one of his friends, named Titin- 
ius, to know who they were. As they were part of Brutus' 
troops they received Titinius joyfully, and taking him among 
them still advanced. Cassius, whose sight was imperfect, 
became convinced that they were enemies, and crying out 
that he had caused the capture of his friend, withdrew into a 
lonely hut and made a faithful freedman strike off his head. 
Titinius slew himself when he heard of his death, and Brutus 
on coming to the place wept over hira, calling him the last of 
the Romans : lest his funeral should dispirit the soldiers, he 
sent his body over to the adjacent isle of Thasos. He then 
assembled and encouraged his troops, promising them a do- 
nation of 2000 drachmas a man. 

The loss on the side of the republicans had been eight 
thousand men, while that of the triumvirs was double the num- 
ber ; yet Antonius, as his troops lay in a wet marshy situation 
and were suffering from want of supplies, still offered battle, 
which Brutus, whose camp was well supplied, prudently de- 
clined : his fleet had also defeated that of the triumvirs, but 
of this he was ignorant. At length, urged by the impatience 
of his soldiers and fearing the effect of dissensions between 
his own men and those of Cassius, he led them out after a 
delay of twenty days, promising them the plunder of two 
cities if they were victorious. Both sides fought with des- 
peration, but victory finally declared for the triumvirs. Bru- 
tus, having crossed a stream that ran through a glen, retired 
for the night to the shelter of a rock with a few of his friends, 



460 HISTORY OF ROME. 

and looking up at the sky, now full of stars, he repeated two 
Greek verses, one of which, from the Medea of Euripides, 
ran thus : * 

Zeus ! may the cause of all these ills escape thee not ! 

He passed the night in enumerating and mourning over those 
who had fallen. Toward morning he whispered his servant 
Clitus, who wept and was silent; he then drew his shield- 
bearer aside ; he finally besought his friend Volumnius to 
hold his sword for him to fall on it. Being refused by all, 
he continued to discourse with them some time longer, and 
then retired with his friend Strato and one or two others to 
a little distance ; he there threw himself on his sword, which 
Strato held for him, and expired. Antonius, when he came 
to where the body of Brutus lay, cast a purple robe over it, 
and he sent his remains to his mother Servilia.t 

* Zsv, fiij Xu-9-ot OS Tcovd^ og aXriog y.axwv. 

Dion (xlvii. 49) and Florus (iv. 7) say that he repeated these verses 
from the Hercules of the same poet : 

'i2 rXfjiiiov aQsrli, koyog ao' rjO&^' iyco dt Os 
' £ig eQyov ijOitovv ov 3' uq^ tSov?.avsg tv/t]. 

" O wretched virtue ! a mere word thou art, but I 
Practised thee as a real thing, while thou art nought 
But Fortune's slave." 

t It was said that Brutus' wife Porcia, when she heard of his death, 
put an end to herself by swallowing burning coals, — a thing physically 
impossible. She might have smothered herself by inhaling the fumes 
of charcoal ; but it appears from the letters of Brutus and his friends 
that she had died of disease before this time. 

As the charge of avarice is the greatest stain that has been fixed on 
the character of Brutus, we will here relate the case which has given 
occasion to it. When Cicero was going out as governor of Cilicia, 
Brutus strongly recommended to him two persons named Scaptius and 
Matinius, to whom the people of Salamis in Cyprus owed a large sum 
of money. Cicero's predecessor, Ap. Claudius, who was Brutus' father- 
in-law, had given Scaptius a prefecture in Cyprus, wliich Brutus wished 
Cicero to continue him in; but Cicero, who had laid it dov/n as a rule 
not to grant these commands to traders and usurers, refused ; particu- 
larly as he knew that Scaptius had shut up the senate of Salamis in 
their house till five of them died of hunger. Moreover Scaptius de- 
manded 48 per cent., and Cicero in his edict had declared that he would 
allow of no more than 12 per cent, on any bonds. Brutus and Atticus 
both wrote repeatedly to Cicero about it, and the former at length con- 
fessed that he was the real creditor and the others were but his agents. 
To Cicero's honor lie stood firm, and would not permit such robbery 
and oppression when he could prevent it. This affair is but one proof 
among many of the manner in which the Roman nobles oppressed the 
provincialsi. 



ANTONIUS IN ASIA. 461 

All who had been concerned in the death of Caesar fol- 
lowed the example of Brutus ; others made their escape to 
Thasos. M. Valerius Messala and Bibulus having collected 
about fourteen thousand men, sent to offer their submission 
to the triumvirs. The victorious generals spent some days 
in glutting their vengeance and extirpating the friends of in- 
dependence ; and we are assured that tlie cool, calculating 
Caesar far surpassed the brutal Antonius in cruelty and inso- 
lence.* They then made a new division of the empire; An- 
tonius getting all the provinces of the East; Caesar those of 
the west, except Africa, which was left to Lepidus • Italy, as 
their common country, remained unappropriated. Having 
made their arrangements, Antonius proceeded to levy money 
in the East for the soldiers' rewards, while Caesar undertook 
to put tljem in possession of the lands promised them in Italy. 

Antonius went first to Greece, and spent some time at 
Athens, where he amused himself attending the games and 
the disputes of the philosophers, and having himself initiated 
in the Mysteries. He behaved with great mildness and was 
very liberal to the city. Leaving L. Censorinus to command 
in Greece, he passed with his army of eight legions and ten 
thousand horse over to Asia, where he disposed of public and 
private property at his will ; kings waited humbly at his doors, 
queens and prmcesses vied in offering him-their wealth and their 
charms. He exacted from the unfortunate people the enor- 
mous sum of 200,000 talents, most part of which he squan- 
dered away in luxury. Meeting at Ephesus several of the 
friends of Brutus and Cassius, he granted their lives to all but 
two ; he acted also with great generosity to the towns which 
had suffered for their attachment to the Caesarian cause. 
From Tarsus in Cilicia he sent to summon Cleopatra (who 
having murdered her young brother was now sole sovereign 
of Egypt) to justify herself for not having been more active 
in the cause of the triumvirs. She came, relying on her 
charms. At the mouth of the Cydnus she entered a barge, 
whose poop was adorned with gold and whose sails were of 
purple; the oars, set with silver, moved in accordance with 
the sound of flutes and lyres. The queen herself, attired as 
Venus, lay reclined beneath the shade of a gold-embroidered 
umbrella, fanned by boys resembling Loves ; while her fe- 
male attendants, habited as Nereides and Graces, leaned 
against the shrouds and sides of the vessel; and costly spices 

* Suet. Octav. 13. 
39* 



462 HISTORY OF ROME. 

and perfumes, as they burned before her, filled the surround- 
ing air with their fragrance. All the people of the city 
crowded to behold this novel sight, and Antonius was left 
sitting alone on his tribunal in the market. He sent to 
invite the fair queen to supper, but she required that he 
should come and sup with her. Antonius could not refuse; 
the elegance and variety of the banquet amazed him: next 
day he tried, but in vain, to surpass it. The guileful en- 
chantress cast her spell over him and twined herself round 
his heart. Cruel as fair, she obtained from him an order to 
drag her sister Arsinoe from the sanctuary at Ephesus, and 
put her to death. Her general Serapion, and an impostor 
who personated her elder brother, were likewise torn from^ 
sanctuaries and given up to her vengeance, and she then set 
out on her return to Egypt. Antonius, unable to live with- 
out her, gave up all his previous thoughts of war on the 
Parthians, and putting his troops into winter quarters, has- 
tened to follow her and abandoned himself wholly to luxury 
and enjoyment in her society. 

Meantime Csesar came to Rome, (711,) and set about giv- 
ing his soldiers their promised rewards ; a task of no small 
difficulty and danger, for they demanded the towns which 
had been fixed on before the war, while the people of these 
towns required that the loss should be shared by all Italy, 
and that those who were deprived of their lands should be 
paid for them. Young and old, men, women, and children, 
they repaired to Rome ; they filled the Forum and temples 
with their lamentations ; and the people there sympathized 
with their grief and mourned their wrongs.* Caesar, however, 
urging the tyrant's plea of necessity, went on distributing lantls 
to his soldiery ; and he even borrowed money from the tem- 
ples to divide among them for the purchase of stock and 
farming implements. This gained him additional favor with 
them, which was increased by the cries and reproaches of 
those whom he was robbing of their properties for them. 
Like every army of the kind, they knew their power over 
their chief, and exercised it with insolence, as the following 
instances will show. One day, when Caesar was present in 
the theatre, a common soldier went and took his seat among 
the knights; the people murmured, and Caesar had him re- 
moved. The soldiers took offence at this, and surrounding 

* See the first and ninth of Virgil's eclogues for affecting pictures 
of the evils of these confiscations. 



CiESAR S DISTRIBUTION OB^ LANDS. 463 

him^as he was going out. of the theatre demanded their com- 
rade's release : they were obeyed ; lie came ; but when he as- 
sured them that he had not been in prison as they supposed, 
they reviled him as a liar and a traitor to the common cause. 
Again, Caesar summoned them to the Field of Mars for a di- 
vision of lands. In their eagerness they came before it was 
day, and finding that he delayed, they began to grow angry. 
A centurion named Nonius reminded them of their duty to 
their general ; they laughed and jeered at him, but gradually 
they grew warm and abused and pelted him; he jumped into 
the river to escape, but they dragged him out and killed him : 
they then laid the body where Cassar was to pass. When he 
came he took but little notice of it, affecting to regard the 
crime as the deed of a few, and merely advised them to be 
more sparing of one another in future ; he then proceeded 
to distribute the land, to which he added gifts to both the de- 
serving and the undeserving. The soldiers were touched ; 
they bade him to search out and punish the murderers. He 
said, " I know them ; but I w^ill leave their punishment 
to their own consciences and to your disapprobation." A 
shout of joy was raised at these words. How different from 
the conduct of the old dictators and consuls, and their 
armies, when Rome had a constitution and freedom, and her 
troops served from duty and not for plunder, like these hordes 
of bandits who raised their leaders to empire over their fellow- 
citizens! 

Caesar's situation was at this time rather precarious. Sex. 
Pompeius was powerful at sea, Cn. Domitius was also at the 
head of a large fleet in the Adriatic, and they cut off the 
supplies of corn from Italy, where tillage was now neglected 
and discontent was general ; for the soldiers, not satisfied 
with what had been given them, seized on such pieces of land 
as took their fancy, and Caesar did not dare to check them. 
Antonius' wife Fulvia, and his brother Lucius, who was now 
consul, resolved to take advantage of this state of things. 
They promised to protect those who had been deprived of their 
lands, and declared that the properties of the proscribed and 
the money raised by Antonius in Asia were quite sufficient 
for paying the soldiers what had been promised them ; and 
they gave out that Antonius was willing to lay down his 
power and restore the constitution. They required Caesar at 
any rate to be content with providing for his own legions, 
and to leave those of Antonius to them ; but Caesar, whose 
object was to attach the soldiery to himself, declined this, al- 



464 HISTORY OF ROME. 

leging his agreement with AntQnius ; aware however of the 
affection of the army for Antonius, and of the present enmity 
of the people of Italy to himself, he agreed to the terms which 
a congress of the officers of Antonius' party proposed for 
ending the differences. He did not however execute them, 
and L. Antonius and Fulvia, affecting to fear for their lives, 
retired to Prseneste, and sent to inform M. Antonius of the 
state of affairs. After another vain attempt at reconciliation 
both sides began to prepare for war. 

The good wishes, and in some cases the means and arms 
of the people of Italy were with L. Antonius ; the remains of 
the Pompeian and republican parties joined him in the hope 
of restoring the republic, and his brother's legions and colo- 
nies supported him; but most of the veterans regarding 
Caesar's cause as their own were zealous in his favor. An- 
tonius' generals Pollio, Ventidius, and Plancus do not seem 
to have exerted themselves as they ought, and L. Antonius, 
being obliged to throw himself into the town of Perusia, 
(Perugia,) was there besieged by Csesar. After a gallant de- 
fence, famine compelled him to surrender, (712.) Csesar 
granted him and his soldiers favorable terms, but for the 
Roman senators and knights, the remnant of the Pompeian 
or republican party who were in it, he had no mercy. " Thou 
must die," was his laconic, ruthless reply to every one who 
sued for mercy or sought to excuse himself Nay, it is even 
said, that he reserved three hundred captives of rank to sac- 
rifice to the manes of the dictator on the following ides of 
March.* The town of Perusia was destined to be plundered, 
but one of its citizens having set fire to his house the whole 
city was consumed. 

This last effort of the republican party crushed their hopes 
forever, and it threw several more properties for confiscation 
into Caesar's hands; some indeed were of opinion that it was 
with a view to this that he had kindled the war.t Several 
persons, among whom was Julia the mother of the Antonii, 
sought refuge with Sex. Pompeius. Fulvia with her children 
and Plancus fled to Greece. 

M. Antonius was preparing to march against the Parthians, 
who had invaxled Syria and taken and plundered Jerusalem, 
when he heard of the late events in Italy. He assembled two 
hundred ships and a large army and sailed to Athens, where 
he met Fulvia, whom he blamed much for her recent conduct ; 

* Sueton. Octav. 15. t Id. ib. 



RETURN OF ANTONIUS TO ITALY. 465 

and leaving her sick at Sicyon, where she died soon after, he 
proceeded toward Italy. Domitius joined him with his fleet, 
•.md Sex. Pompeius (though Ca3sar in the hopes of gaining him 
to his side had lately married Scribonia, the sister of his 
father-in-law Libo, a woman many years older than himself*) 
preferring an alliance with Antonius, sent his mother Julia 
to him, and a kind of treaty was concluded between them. 
When Antonius came before Brundisium he was refused ad- 
mittance ; he then blockaded the port, and sent calling on Pom- 
peius to invade Italy. Caesar came to the relief of Brundisium ; 
but his soldiers were unwilling to fight against Antonius, 
and the two armies-sought to reconcile their leaders. C. Asin- 
ius Pollio and C. Cilnius Mgecenas on the parts of Antonius 
and CfEsar, and M. Cocceius Nerva a common friend, came,t 
and, having conferred together, settled the terms of agree- 
ment. AH past offences were to be forgotten ; Antonius, who 
was now a widower, was to espouse CsBsar's half-sister Oc- 
tavia, a lady of great beauty, sense and virtue; and the divis- 
ion of the empire was to remain nearly as before. 1; 

Antonius sent Ventidius to conduct the Parthian war, 
while he himself remained in Italy. The chief object now 
was to come to some arrangement with Sex. Pompeius, who 
was actually starving Rome by cutting off the supplies of 
corn. Cassar, who was personally hostile to him, would not 
hear of accommodation till one day he was near being stoned 
by the famishing multitude. This operated on his cautious, 
timid nature, and the two triumvirs had an interview with 
Pompeius at Cape Misenum, but his demands were so high 
that nothing could be arranged. The increasing distress 
obliged them to have another meeting, and it was agreed 
(713) that Pompeius should possess the islands and Pelopon- 
nesus, be chosen augur, be allowed to stand for the consulate 
in his absence, and to discharge its duties by deputy, and be 
paid 70,000,000 sesterces; that all who had sought refuge 
with him out of fear should be restored to their estates and 
rights, and all the proscribed (except the actual assassins) 
have liberty to return and get back a fourth of their estates. 

*• Csesar, on the rupture with Fulvia, sent her back her daughter 
Clodia, having never consummated his marriage. 

t Horace (Sat. I. v.) has given a very agreeable description of the 
journey of Maecenas, whom he accompanied from Rome to Brundisium 
on this occasion. 

t The blessings which were to result from this peace are, as Voss 
has proved, the theme of Virgil's fourth eclogue. 

G G G 



466 HISTORY OF ROME. 

On his part he was to allow the sea to be free, and to pay up the 
arrears of corn due from Sicily. When the peace was con- 
cluded the chiefs entertained each other ; Pompeius gave his 
dinner on board his ship. At the feast, Menas, one of his 
officers, whispered him, saying, " Let me now cut the cables, 
and you are master of Rome." Pompeius pondered a mo- 
ment : " You should have done it," said he, " without telling 
me ; I cannot perjure myself" Having been entertained in 
return he set sail for Sicily, and Cresar and Antonius went 
back to Rome ; the latter soon after set out for Athens, 
where he spent the rest of the year. 

The following year (714) Ventidius, who had been suc- 
cessful against the Parthians, defeated and killed their brave 
young prince Pacorus, for which Antonius allowed him to 
have the honor of a triumph.* In this year also the war was 
renewed between Ccesar and Pompeius : and Menas, the 
admiral of the latter, having deserted to Cssar, put him in 
possession of Sardinia and Corsica. Caesar assailed Sicily 
with two separate fleets, but both were destroyed by Pom- 
peius ; and Caesar himself, who was on board of one of them, 
narrowly escaped being taken or drowned. The triumvirs 
now of themselves renewed their office for another five years, 
disdaining to consult the senate or people. The whole of 
the succeeding year (715) was devoted by Caesar to the prep- 
arations against Pompeius, and a large fleet was built under 
the superintendence of the consul, M. Vipsanius Agrippa, a 
man of humble birth, but of great civil and military talents, 
and wholly devoted to the service of Caesar. t 

Early in the following year (716) when Caesar was pre- 
paring to act against Pompeius, Antonius came with three 
hundred ships to Brundisium, under the pretext of assisting 
him, but in reality with other views. Being refused admit- 
tance he sailed to Tarentum, whence Octavia went to her 
brother, and by her influence with his friends Agrippa and 
Maecenas, prevailed on him to agree to a meeting with An- 
tonius. The cautious Caesar appointed a place where there 
would be a river between them, but when they came to it, 

* Ventidius, who was the son of the general of the same name in 
the Marsic war, had himself adorned as a captive the triumph of 
Pompeius Strabo at the end of that war. 

t At this time the celebrated Julian Port was made, by running a 
strong mole between the Lucrine lake and the sea, with two passages in 
it for ships, and cutting a ship-canal from that lake to lake Avernus. 
See Vire- Geor. ii. 161. Horace, De Art. Poet. 63. 



WAR WITH SEX. POMPEIUS. 467 

Antonius, more brave and more generous, jumped into a 
boat to cross over ; Caesar then, assuming the virtue he had 
not, did the same ; they met in the middle, and then dis- 
puting which should pass over, Caesar prevailed, as he said 
he would go to Tarentum to visit his sister. They soon 
arranged all matters : Antonius lent Caesar one hundred and 
twenty ships, and received in return twenty thousand soldiers 
for his Parthian war, and he then set out for the East, Jeav- 
ing Octavia in Italy. 

Caesar, having every thing now prepared, resolved to make 
three simultaneous attacks on Sicily. Lepidus was to invade 
it from Africa, Statilius Taurus with the ships of Antonius 
from Tarentum, Caesar himself and Agrippa from the Julian 
Port. Lepidus alone effected a landing; the other two fleets 
were shattered by a tempest. Pompeius, affecting to view 
the peculiar favor of the sea-god in this destruction of the 
hostile fleet by a summer-tempest, sacrificed to Neptune and 
the Sea, (Amphitrite,) styled himself their son, and changed 
the color of his robe from purple to dark-blue, [cceruleus.) 
Caesar declared that he would conquer in spite of Neptune, 
and forbade the image of that god to be carried at the next 
Circensian orames.* 

Lepidus had with him twelve legions and five thousand 
Numidian horse ; he sent orders to his remaining four le- 
gions to come and join him, but they were met on the pas- 
sage by Papias, one of Pompeius' commanders, and two of 
them destroyed ; the other two found means to join him 
some time after. Caesar's fleet having passed over to the 
Liparaean isles sailed thence under the command of Agrippa, 
and engaged that of Pompeius led by his admirals Papias, 
Menecrates, and Apollophanes, off Mylae. Caesar's ships 
were larger, those of Pompeius lighter and more active ; the 
former had the better soldiers, the latter the better sailors, 
but Agrippa had invented grappling implements, somewhat 
like the old ravens. The fight was long and obstinate ; at 
length the Pompeians fled with the loss of thirty vessels. 
Agrippa sailed thence and made an ineffectual attempt on 
the town of Tyndaris, 

Caesar had gone to Taurus' camp at Scylaceum, intending 
to pass over in the night from Rhegium to Sicily ; but he 
took courage when he heard of Agrippa's success, and hav- 
ing first prudently ascended a lofty hill to assure himself that 

* Suet. Octav. IG. 



468 HISTORY OF ROME. 

no enemy was in sight, he went on board with what troops 
his ships could carry, leaving the rest with Messala till he 
could send the ships back for them. Being refused admit- 
tance into Taurominium he sailed further on, and landing, 
began to encamp, but suddenly Pompeius was seen coming 
with a large fleet, and bodies of horse and foot appeared on 
all sides. Had Pompeius now made a general attack he 
might have gained a complete victory, but as it was evening 
be did not wish to engage, and his cavalry alone assailed the 
enemy. During the night the Csesarians fortified their camp, 
and Caesar leaving the command with L. Cornificius, and de- 
siring him to hold out to the last, embarked to return to Italy 
for succors; his vessel being hotly pursued he was obliged 
to get into a small boat to save himself, and he escaped with 
difficulty. Pompeius next day fell on and destroyed the whole 
Caesarian fleet, and Cornificius soon began to be in want 
of provisions ; having vainly offered the enemy battle he re- 
solved to abandon his camp and march for Mylae, and though 
harassed by the enemy's horse and light troops, and suffer- 
ing from heat, thirst, and fatigue during five days, his troops 
effected their retreat. Agrippa had now taken Tyndaris, 
whither Csesar soon transported twenty-one legions, twenty 
thousand horse and five thousand light troops. Lepidus 
moved from Lilybaeum, and their united forces met before the 
walls of Messana. Pompeius seeing no hopes but in a gen- 
eral battle sent to propose a combat of three hundred ships 
a-side, and Caesar, jealous of Lepidus, departed from his 
usual caution and accepted the challenge. The victory was 
complete on the side of Caesar. Pompeius' land army, with 
the exception of eight legions in Messana, surrendered, and 
he himself, with his seventeen sole remaining ships abandon- 
ing Sicily, passed over to Asia, where raising a new war he 
was taken and put to death by P. Titius, one of Antonius' 
officers. 

Messana soon surrendered, and the whole island sub- 
mitted ; Caesar then proceeded to deprive his colleague 
Lepidus of his office and pov^^er; and having ascertained 
the temper of his officers and men, he ventured to enter his 
camp with a few attendants. Lepidus being deserted by 
his troops was forced to assume the garb of a suppliant, 
and throw himself at the feet of Cassar, who, never wan- 
tonly cruel, and knowing how powerless he would remain, 
raised him, granted him his life, and allowed him to pass 



PARTHIAN WAR. 469 

the rest of his days at Circeii, retaining his dignity of high 
priest. 

As Csesar was preparing to return to Italy, a mutiny 
broke out, his troops demanding their discharge and re- 
wards equal to those of the victors at Philippi. He threat- 
ened and remonstrated in vain; when he promised crowns 
and purple robes, one of the tribunes cried out that these 
were only fit for children, but that soldiers required money 
and lands. The soldiers loudly applauded ; Caesar left the 
tribunal in a rage ; the tribune was extolled, but that very 
night he disappeared, and was heard of no more. As the 
soldiers still continued to clamor for their discharge, Csesar 
dismissed and sent out of the island those who had served 
at Mutina and Philippi. He then praised the rest, and 
gave them 500 denars a man, raised by a tax on the Sicil- 
ians. On his return to Rome he was received with every 
demonstration of joy by the senate and people ; and aware 
now of the tyranny which the army would exercise over 
him if he continued to depend on it, he sought to gain the 
affections of the people of Rome and Italy. It was prob- 
ably with this view that he purchased fairly the lands which 
he required for his veterans. 

While Caesar was thus laying the foundation of his future 
empire, Antonius was wasting his troops and his fame in 
an inglorious war with the Parthians. Under pretence of 
aiding the king of Armenia, he entered that country with 
an army of 60'',000 legionaries, 10,000 horse, and 30,000 
auxiliary light troops ; and though it was late in the sum- 
mer, he passed the Araxes, and leaving his artillery on the 
frontiers under the guard of two legions, marched against 
Praaspa, the capital of Media Atropatenia. But the kings 
of Parthia and Media cut the two legions to pieces and 
destroyed the machines, and then came to the relief of 
Praaspa, where they so harassed the Romans by cutting off 
their supplies that Antonius was obliged to commence a 
retreat. Led by a faithful guide he kept to the mountains, 
followed closely by the Parthians; his troops suffered se- 
verely from famine and thirst; but at length they reached 
and got over the Araxes, having in the retreat sustained a 
loss of 29,000 foot and 4000 horse. Instead of wintering 
in Armenia he set out for Syria, impatient to rejoin Cleo- 
patra ; in the march to which he lost eight thousand more 
of his men. The queen came to Berytus- to meet him, and 
40 



470 HISTORY OF ROME. 

he returned with her to Alexandria, where they passed the 
winter in feasting and revelry. 

In the year 718, Antonius, in alliance with the king of 
the Medes, entered Armenia, and by treachery made its 
king a prisoner. He defeated the Armenians when they 
took up arms, and on his return to Alexandria he tri- 
umphed after the Roman fashion, — a thing which gave the 
greatest possible offence to the people of Rome when they 
heard of it. The next year (719) he marched again to the 
Araxes, and concluded an alliance offensive and defensive 
with the king of Media, to whom he gave a part of Arme- 
nia. On his return to Egypt he acted with the greatest 
extravagance. He and Cleopatra sat in public on golden 
thrones, the one attired as Bacchus, the other as Isis ; * he 
declared her his lawful wife, and queen of Egypt, Libya, 
Cyprus, and Ccele-Syria, associating with her Csesarion, 
her son by Caesar, and giving kingdoms to the two sons 
whom she had borne to himself The most unbounded 
luxury followed this degradation of the majesty of Rome. 

When Antonius was setting out on his second expedition 
against the Parthians, (719,) Octavia obtained leave from 
her brother to go and join him ; but Antonius, urged by 
Cleopatra, sent word to her to return to Italy. Csesar, 
glad perhaps of the pretext for war, laid before the senate 
the whole of Antonius' conduct, (720,) who in revenge sent 
Octavia a divorce ; and, after various insulting messages 
and letters on both sides, Antonius directed his general 
P. Canidius to march sixteen legions to Ephesus, whither he 
himself soon after repaired with Cleopatra; and here he 
was joined by the consuls Cn. Domitius and C. Sosius, and 
his other friends who had come from Italy. Domitius 
urged him in vain to send away Cleopatra; she gained 
over Canidius, and Antonius was unable to resist their joint 
arguments. He and she passed over to Samos, and spent 
their days in revelry, while the kings of the East were for- 
warding their troops and stores to Ephesus. From Samos 
they went to Athens, where they passed some time. 

Caesar meantime was making his preparations in Italy, 
for which purpose he was obliged to lay on heavy taxes. 
As the people were in ill humor at this, he sought by all 

* At one of these banquets Cleopatra dissolved and drank a pearl of 
great price. Pliny, H. N., ix. 35, 50. 



RUPTURE BETWEEN C^SAR AND ANTONIUS. 471 

means to render Antonius odious and contemptible in their 
eyes ; and Plancus, who deserted to him at this time, having 
informed him of the contents of Antonius' will, he forced 
the Vestals, in whose custody it was, to give it up, and then 
most basely and dishonorably made it public. Pie had a 
decree passed depriving Antonius of the triumvirate and 
declaring war against Cleopatra, affecting to believe that she, 
not Antonius, was the real leader of the hostile forces. 

In the autumn Antonius sailed to Corey ra, but not ven- 
turing to pass over to Italy, he retired to Peloponnesus for 
the winter. 

The next year (721) Antonius occupied the bay of Am- 
bracia with his fleet; that of Caesar lay at Brundisium and 
the adjacent ports, whence Agrippa sailed with a division 
and took the town of Methone, (Modon,) and seized a large 
convoy. Caesar then embarked his army, and landing at 
the Ceraunian mountains, marched and encamped on the 
north side of the bay of Ambracia ; the army of Antonius 
was on the south side ; and they thus lay opposite each 
other for some months. Meantime Agrippa took Patrae, 
Corinth and some other towns ; and Domitius and other 
leaders deserted to Caesar. 

Antonius' land forces amounted to 100,000 foot and 
12,000 horse, besides the auxiliaries ; his fleet counted 500 
ships. Caesar had 80,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and 250 ships ; 
his troops and sailors werg both superior to those of his op- 
ponent ; his ships, though smaller in size, were better built 
and better manned. The great question with Antonius 
was, whether he should risk a land or a sea battle. Canid- 
ius was for the former, Cleopatra for the latter, and the 
queen of course prevailed. Antonius selected 170 of his 
best ships, which were all he could fully man, and burned 
the rest ; with these he joined Cleopatra's 60 vessels, and 
he put 20,000 soldiers on board. On the 2d of September 
he drew up his fleet in line of battle before the mouth of 
the bay. Caesar's fleet, led by Agrippa, kept about a mile 
out to sea; the two land armies, the one from the cape of 
Actium, the other from the opposite point, stood as specta- 
tors of the combat, Antonius had directed his officers to 
keep close to shore, and thus render the agility of the ene- 
my's vessels of no avail ; but when about noon a breeze 
sprang up, his left wing, eager to engage, began to advance. 
Agrippa made his right wing fall back, to draw it on ; the 
engagement soon became general and both sides fought 



472 HISTORY OF ROME. 

with great courage ; but in the midst of the action, whether 
from fear, treachery, or a conviction that the battle would 
be lost, Cleopatra, followed by all her ships, turned and fled 
for Egypt : and Antonius, when he saw her going, left the 
battle and followed after her. The battle still lasted till five 
in the evening, when finding themselves abandoned by their 
leader, the naval forces accepted the offers of Csesar and 
submitted to him. The land army refused for seven days to 
listen to his solicitations ; but at length, being deserted by 
Canidius and their other leaders, they yielded to necessity 
and submitted. Csesar, having made offerings to Apollo of 
Actium, sent home his veterans with Agrippa ; he tlien pro- 
ceeded to Athens, and thence to Asia; but he was obliged 
to return to Italy in the middle of the winter, on account 
of the turbulence of the veterans, whom Agrippa could not 
keep in order. 

When Antonius overtook Cleopatra he went on board of 
her ship, but during three days he sat in silence, refusing 
to see her. At Tasnaron in Laconia her women brought 
about a reconciliation, and Antonius having written to 
Canidius to lead the army to Asia, they sailed for Egypt ; 
they parted on the confines of Cyrene, but when Antonius 
found that the governor of this province also had declared 
for CsBsar, it was with difficulty that his friends were able 
to keep him from destroying himself They brought him 
to Alexandria, where Cleopatra "was busily engaged in a 
new project ; she had had some of her ships hauled over 
the Isthmus of Suez, intending to fly with her treasures to 
some unknown region ; but the Arabs, at the instance of 
Didius, who commanded for CsBsar in Syria, burned her 
vessels and thus frustrated her design. She then beijan to 
put her kingdom into a state of defence. Nevertheless, she, 
Antonius, and their friends, were resolved to die; mean- 
time they spent their time in feasting and revelry. 

Csesar, having staid but twenty-seven days at Rome, re- 
turned (722) to Asia, all whose kings submitted to him. 
An envoy from Antonius and Cleopatra came to him ; the 
latter resigning her crown, and only asking the kingdom 
of Egypt for her children ; the former requesting to be al- 
lowed to live as a private man at Athens. To Antonius he 
deigned no reply ; the queen was assured of every favor if 
she banished or put him to death. Meantime he himself ad- 
vanced on the east and seized Pelusium, while Cn. Cornelius 
Gallus made himself master of Peritonium on the west of 



DEATH OF ANTONIUS. 473 

Egypt. Anton ius flew to oppose this last, but was driven 
off with loss. When Caesar drew niorh to Alexandria, An- 
tonius put himself at the head of his troops and gave him a 
check ; and emboldened by this success he drew out his army 
and his fleet on the 1st of August for a general engagement. 
His fleet was seen to advance in good order till it met that 
of Caesar ; it then turned round, and both together took a 
station before the port. Antonius' cavalry seeing this, also 
went over to Caisar ; his infantry was then forced to yield, 
and he himself returned in a rage to the town, crying that 
Cleopatra had ruined and betrayed him. 

The queen had a little time before had a kind of sepul- 
chre built near the temple of Isis, in which she placed her 
jewels and other valuables, and covered them with combus- 
tibles, with the intention, as she declared, of burning them 
and herself if driven to it. The knowledge of this had 
caused Caesar to send her various assurances of his respect 
and his kind intentions. She now shut herself up in the 
sepulchre, and caused a report to be spread of her death. 
This event revived the tenderness of Antonius ; he resolved 
not to survive her ; he bade his faithful freedman Eros, who 
had engaged by oath to kill him, to perform his promise. 
Eros drew his sword, but plunged it into his own body and 
fell dead at his feet. Antonius then drew his own sword 
and stabbed himself in the belly ; he threw himself on his 
bed, where he lay writhing, vainly calling on his friends to 
despatch him. Meantime Cleopatra, having heard what had 
been done, sent to tell him she was alive, and to request 
that he would let Tiimself be carried to her ; he assented, 
and as she would not have the door of her retreat opened, 
she and her maids drew him up by cords at a window. 
She laid him on her bed, and gave way to the most vio- 
lent transports of grief: Antonius sought to console her, 
begged of her to save her life if she could with honor, and 
among Caesar's friends recommended to her Proculeius. He 
then expired, in the fifty-third year of his age. 

The sword with which Antonius slew himself was brought 
to Caesar, who, it is said, shed tears at the sight. Anxious 
to .secure Cleopatra and her treasure, he sent Proculeius to 
her : she refused to admit him ; he then returned to Cassar, 
who sent back Gallus with him with new proposals ; and 
wliile Gallus was talking to her at the door, Proculeius and 
two others got in at the window and made her prisoner, 
Caesar, when he entered Alexandria, had her treated with the 

40 * H H H 



474 HISTORY OF ROME. 

utmost respect ; and he allowed her to solemnize the obse- 
quies of Antonius, which she performed with the greatest 
macrnificence. 

Caesar soon after paid her a visit ; she received him 
slightly arrayed, with her hair in disorder ; her eyes were 
red with weeping, and her voice faint and tremulous. She 
threw herself at his feet ; he raised her, and sat beside her ; 
she attempted to excuse her previous conduct, and seemed 
as if she wished to live. Ceesar made many promises ; it 
was a trial of skill between two consummate actors ; the 
artful queen sought to catch him in the net of love ; the 
cold-blooded Caesar wished to make her live to grace his 
triumph. He left her, certain that he had succeeded, but 
he was deceived. In a few days Cleopatra learned that she 
and her children were to be sent on to Syria before him ; 
she then resolved on death, and having obtained permission 
to visit the tomb of Antonius, she embraced it and crowned 
it with flowers ; and then, as if her mourning was over, 
bathed and sat down richly arrayed to a splendid banquet. 
While, she was at table a peasant came with a basket of fine 
figs ; the guards suspecting nothing let him in. The queen 
took the basket, aware of its contents; she wrote a letter 
to Caesar requesting to be buried with Antonius ; and then, 
retaining in the room only her maids Charmion and Iras, 
applied to her arm an asp which had been concealed among 
the pretended peasant's figs. When those whom Caesar 
sent to prevent her death arrived, they found her lying 
dead on her bed, Iras also dead at her feet, and Charmion 
just expiring in the act of arranging the diadem on the head 
of her mistress. Caesar gave Cleopatra and her faithful 
maids a magnificent funeral, and buried her as she wished 
by the side of Antonius. He put to death her son Caesa- 
rion ; her two other sons adorned his triumph. 

Cleopatra died in the thirty-ninth year of her age ; the 
last of the Ptolemsean family. Her influence over Caesar 
and Antonius testifies for her beauty, talents, and accom- 
plishments ; but she was utterly devoid of principle, and 
capable of committing any crime. 

Caesar reduced Egypt to the form of a province, and its 
wealth, when transported to Rome, enabled him to reward 
his legions without the odium of robbing any more pro- 
prietors of their lands. He returned to Italy the following 
year, (723,) and in the month of Sextilis (August) cele- 
brated three triumphs ; he then closed the temple of Janus. 



SOLE DOMINION OF CiBSAR. 475 

which had stood open for two centuries. The senate knew 
no end of heaping honors on him ; his name was inserted 
in the public prayers; the consul and senate swore on the 
kalends of every January to obey his orders; under the 
title of Imperator he held the command of the army ; and 
gradually all the chief offices of the state were united in 
his person. In 725 the senate, on the motion of L. Mu- 
natius Plancus, conferred on him the title of Augustus, 
a term hitherto only employed in a religious sense. He 
was now the sole master of the Roman world ; and during 
the space of nearly half a century it enjoyed beneath his 
sway a degree of peace and tranquillity such as it had never 
known before. 



Though the last period of the republic was of so unquiet 
a character, literature was cultivated with much ardor by 
persons of rank and fortune. The language, the philoso- 
phy, and the poetry of the Greeks were familiar to every 
Roman of education ; a library formed an essential part of 
every respectable house, and its contents were chiefly Greek. 
Roman poetry was still imitative, and the drama the great 
object of imitation. L, Attius, the younger contemporary of 
Pacuvius, may be regarded as the last of that rough but vig- 
orous race of poets who ventured to tread in the foot-prints of 
^schylus and Sophocles. But the higher drama seems to 
have been as unattainable to ancient as to modern Italy. 
Attius' contemporary C, Lucilfus followed Ennius in writing 
satires ; of these he left several books, all of which have per- 
ished. In the time of Cicero, T. Lucretius Carus put the 
physics of Epicurus into verse ; and in no portions of Ro- 
man poetry is the true, the born poet, so discernible as in 
those where his ill-chosen subject allowed him to give free 
course to his genius. C. Valerius Catullus was also a poet 
of true genius ; grace, elegance, ease, and feeling strongly 
characterize many of his extant poems. 

Numerous histories also were written in this period : L. 
Calpurnius Piso and Ccelius Antipater in the time of the 
Gracchi wrote histories of Rome, and they were followed by 
Cn. Gellius, Q,. Claudius Q,uadrigarius, Q,. Valerius Antias, 
(not^ious for mendacity,) and C. Licinius Macer, with 
whom the series of annalists ends. Histories of their own 



476 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



lives or times were written by C. Fannius, Sempronius 
Asellio, P. Rutilius, L. Cornelius Sisenna, Q. Catuliis, L. 
Sulla, L. Lucullus, and others. C. Junius, named Grac- 
chanus from his friendship with C. Gracchus, wrote a valu- 
able history of the constitution, which, though lost, is medi- 
ately the chief source whence our knowledge of it is derived. 
The only historian of this period of whose works any perfect 
portions have reached us is C. Sallustius Crispus. This 
writer seems to have taken Thucydides as his model, but he 
can by no means stand a rivalry with the great Athenian. 
Caesar's narrative of his own wars is a perfect specimen 
of that species of composition to which it belongs. The 
various writings, oratorical, philosophical, and didactic, of 
Cicero, are well known and most justly admired. Of the 
numerous works of M. Terentius Varro, the most learned 
of the Romans, but a small portion has been preserved. 

We have thus traced the history of Rome from the time 
when she was only a village on the Palatine to that when 
she became the mistress of the world ; a future work will be 
devoted to the history of the enormous empire of which she 
now only formed a part. In the progress of Rome to do- 
minion it is difficult not to discern the hand of a predis- 
posing cause; the steadiness and perseverance of the Roman 
character; the preponderance of the aristocratic elements in 
her constitution at the time of her conflicts with her most 
-powerful rivals; the advantage which the unity produced by 
a capital, as a fixed point, gave her over the brave but loose 
federation of Samnium, and her armies of citizens and allies 
over the mercenaries in the pay of Carthage ; and the cir- 
cumstance of all other states being in their decline when 
she engaged them, — all tend to show that the empire of the 
world was reserved for Rome. But in the attainment of 
this empire she was also destined to lose her own freedom. 
Neglecting to enforce her agrarian laws, and not being a 
commercial state, she possessed no middle class of citizens,* 



* L. Marcius Philippus, when proposing an agrarian law in his tribu- 
nate, (648,) asserted that there were not two thousand citizens who 
were possessed of property, (" non esse in civitate duo millia hominum 
qui rem haberent." Cicero, Off. ii. 21.) Many of the leading families 
of both orders in the early ages of the republic must have died off, or 
have dwindled into insignificance, in consequence probably of^here 
being neither law nor custom of primogeniture. In the Fasti and 
history of the last century we rarely meet the names of the Quinctii, 



CONCLUSION. 477 

without which there can be no permanent liberty ; the Hor- 
tensian law placed all political power at the disposal of the 
lower order of the people ; the incessant foreign wars cor- 
rupted the genuine Roman character, and the constant 
influx and manumission of slaves further debased it. Mean- 
time the government of provinces, the conduct of wars, and 
the farming of the public revenues, enabled some of the no- 
bility and the knights to acquire immense wealth, with which 
they purchased impunity for their crimes and the lucrative 
and influential offices of the state ; for the votes of electors 
without property are always in danger of becoming venal. 
The consequence of this condition of society was, as we 
have seen, a century of turbulence and anarchy, ending in a 
despotism. 

Manlii, Fabii, Furii, Decii, Curii, and never those of the Horatii, Me- 
rienii, Veturii, Genucii, Icilii, Numitorii. The Virgilii of the late, are 
probably the Virginii of the old Fasti ; Atilius and Atinius (like Man- 
lius and Mallius) are perhaps the same. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



OF 



CONTEMPORARY HISTORY. 



Note. — It would be impossible to present the reader, in this 
table, with a complete view of the contemporary history of all 
nations. The fulfilment of that design, though highly useful, 
would, of itself, occupy a volume. The reader may be referred 
to a work, in which it has been carried out through the whole 
range of ancient History, entitled, "Comparative View of Ancient 
History, and Explanation of Chronological Eras," by the editor 
of this volume. What can be here done will be merely to 
present a view of the principal events which transpired in the 
most renowned among the nations of antiquity, at about the same 
time that the most marked events took place in the history of 
Rome. The details may be filled up by reference to the work 
already mentioned. It is most important, in the study of individual 
histories, that a knowledge should be constantly present of the 
contemporary events transpiring in other nations or members^ of 
the great human family. 



Years 

of 
Rome. 


Years 
B. C. 


Events of Rome. 


Events of Greece. 


Events of other Nations. 


1* 


753 j 
743 1 

724) 
721 

715 


Rome founded ; Romu- ) 
Ills king \ 

j 


j 


Bocclioris king of 


11 
to 


First Messenian 
war. 

j 


Egypt. 


30 
33 


\ 


Israel destroyed by 


39 


Nuina Pompilius. 




Assyria. 



* See " Comparative View, &c., and Explanation of Chronological Eras," as above, 
p. 92, title " Era of the Foundation of Rome; " and '' Synchronous Table," in the same 
work, p. 116. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



479 



Years 
B. C. 



Events of Rome. 



685 

671 
672 
640 
616 
605 

594 

578 

559 

534 
509 

490 

458 



i 



452 
431 



404 
390 
356 

338 
336 

321 

280 
264 

201 
216 
197 

188 

130 ' 

168 



146. 



142 
141 



133 
133 



121 
111 



106 
90 



73 



66 



Tullus Hostilius. 

Ancus Martius. 

L. Tarquinius Prisciis. 

Servius Tullius. 

L. Tarquinius Superbus 
Royalty abolished 

Internal discontent 

Romans send to Greece t 
for laws ; whence 12 } 
tables framed ( 

Incursion of Gauls 

Pyrrhus of Eplrus con- 
tends with Rome .... 

Funic wars _. . . 

Battle of Cannte. 

Asia Minor chiefly sub 
ject to Rome. 

Conquest of Macedon . . , 

Rome masters of Greece. 
Destruction of Car- 
thage 

Macedon a Roman prov 
ince. 

Numantine war. 



EvenU of Greece. 



Death of the Gracchi. 



Jugurthine war.. 

Social war 

Sulla and Marius. 
Servile war 

Mithridatic war.. 



Second Mesae- 
nian war. 



Solon archon of 
Athens. 



Persian wars 
commence. 



Internal dissen- 
sions. 

Peloponnesian 
war 



Events of other Nations. 



Sacred wars... 

Alexander the 

Great 

Division of his 
empire 

Achaean league. 

Internal dissen- 
sions 



Battle of Cor- 
inth, and fall 
of Greece. 



Judah subverted by 
Babylon ; 70 years' 
captivity begins. 



Babylon falls before 
Cyrus. 



Ezra renews ancient 
system of polity 
among the Jews. 



Palestine under Per- 
sia till time of Al- 
exander the Great; 
thence under his 
Successors in Syria. 



Ptolemy of Egypt con- 
quers Palestine. 



Parlhia rises, 
Arsaces. 



under 



Jews subject to Syria. 



Jews, under Macca- 
bees, throw off Syr- 
ian yoke. 



Egypt in continual 
turmoil. 



480 



CHRONOIiOGlCAL. TABLE. 



Years 


Years 
B. C. 


Events of Rome, 


Events of Greece. 


Events of other Nations. 


Rome. 








686 


68 




\ 


Syria a Roman prov- 






\ 


ince. 


t)91 


63 


Catiline's conspiracy.... 


\ 


Jerusalem opened to 




I 


Pornpey. 


695) 


58) 








to i 


V 


Gaul reduced. 






701) 


51) 








706 


48 


Battle of Pharsalia. 






7J0 


44 


Death of Cffisar. 
Triumvirate of Octavia- 






711 


43 S 


nus, Antonius, and Le- 
pidus. 






712 


42 


Battle of Philippl. 






723 


31 


Battle of Actium. 






724 


30 




I 


Egypt a Roman prov- 






1 


ince. 




( 


Octavianiis first emperor 






727 


^i 


of Rome, under the 
name of Augustus. 




. 



MAy3-.'i94fe 



X 



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